A televisão na escola como objeto de leitura : uma proposta de letramento midiático televisivo

Abstract

In this research, it was investigated how schools,' teachers' and students interact with the television as a mass media vehicle, and how it is used in the educational environment. The methodology used included questionnaires and interviews with the members of the course "TV and Reading", which was organized in order to reach the general aim of this research: to assist the formation of teachers so that they could be able to work with the television in the classroom as a reading object, by forming critical expectators who could read the mass contents selectively. The course was composed by four modules of four hours each, and it was designed for sixteen Portuguese teachers in a public high school in Cascavel, Parana state. The theoretical framework was based on the conception of the interactionist reading view, which understands it as a process of a construction of meanings in which the reader is a co-producer and also interacts with the text. This concept is viewed when one is watching television, and when this is considered a reading act. That's why, I defend that it is urgent that schools include the television in the classrooms as a reading object, because this will make students critical and competent readers. Through the teachers` questionnaires, it was possible to observe that the television is not used in the classroom as a reading source, but just as a technical support for the video classes. Another aspect observed is that most teachers do not understand the act of watching television as a reading act. However this changed after their participation in the course "TV and Reading". Another relevant data is that, in spite of working about forty hours a week, teachers watch TV every day, which characterizes a habit, without any negative evaluation when related to their practice. The data revealed that, although most times they do not assume, teachers are frequent expectators, and a hundred percent of them prefer the news. The main result observed in this research was the real application of the media literacy which was showed in the course "TV and Reading" by one of the Portuguese teachers. During a class, students produced some news about an environmental game which is developed annually by their school. In this class, they practiced concepts that helped them to know how the TV news are produced, so they became critical readers of the media, and also selective when we consider the characteristics of a competent reader.