Reading and writing culture during media-educational practices in Rio de Janeiro's municipal schools

Abstract

In 2015, the Education and Media Department of Rio de Janeiro's Secretary of Municipal Education, the Desiderata NGO Institute and the Research Group on Education and Media of PUC-Rio conducted a quantitative research on educational media practices, of which 911 municipal schools took part, and the results showed a low recurrence in producing digital media and audiovisual content in municipal schools. Some numbers in answered questionnaires draw called our attention: in 90.6% of the schools, students frequently "watched movies and videos", while in 53.7%, no video content has ever been previously produced with students. Results indicate that the media-educational practices based on production related to reading and writing, such as books, fanzines and newspapers, are better consolidated in those schools. Based on these data, this article aims to structure arguments for understanding this scenario, focusing on the comparative analysis between public policies to promote reading and those of media-educational practices, in order to raise questions about the role of digital media in school culture, taking into account that students are agents in social networks, sharing opinions and producing content. School culture, media education, digital literacy are the concepts that allows for the broadening of the debate on this topic. The research concludes that latent media-educational practices in the daily life of these schools occur by means of isolated actions of teachers and collectives, and argues for the need of a systematized and continued institutional articulation so that school learning is enriched with the potential represented by the use of digital and audiovisual media in contemporary times.