Regaining Impact Media Education and Media Literacy in a Norwegian Context

Media education is regaining its impact in Norwegian education, both due to the development of a new subject at the upper secondary level and due to a renewed interest in media literacy across the curriculum. From being defined as a marginal issue in educational curricula and development during the 1980s and 1990s, media literacy has now become a key concern linked to technological developments in the Nordic societies over the past ten years. With the Norwegian context as a point of departure, the present article looks especially at media literacy as an expression of certain practices, and at how media education represents a distinctive prerequisite for understanding what young people do with media outside and inside the schools. The article presents results from the first national survey on media education in Norwegian upper secondary schools. A special focus is directed towards the diverse production practices among what are called "school producers" ( SP) and "crossover producers" (CP).