Elizabeth Thoman
| Gender | Female |
|---|---|
| Industry | Education |
| Occupation | Founder, Center for Media Literacy |
| Location | Los Angeles, CA, United States |
| Introduction | It has been 40 years since I introduced my honors Journalism class to a provocative author everyone was talking about: Marshall McCluhan. I did not understand everything McLuhan said-- and neither did my students -- but we all had an inkling that his vision was a breakthrough. Since that time I have worked to develop the media literacy field in the USA -- as a writer, speaker, workshop trainer, publisher, advocate and, in 1977, founder of the magazine Media &Values which grew into the Center for Media Literacy in 1989. At the Center we developed some of the first media literacy curriculum materials designed for use in U.S. schools on topics such as violence in media, gender representation, analyzing the news and advertising. Because teacher training is so critical to media literacy, I was one of the co-founders of the professional membership group, the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), serve as Treasurer of the NAMLE Board and coordinate the NAMLE Marketplace (www.namlemarketplace.net) -- a one-stop shop for professional development resources in the field. And I continue with speaking, writing and mentoring in dozens of different ways. |
| Interests | media literacy education, learning in the 21st century, social issues in media, information literacy, visual language, still photography, dissemination of information (or how ideas spread through society). |
| Favorite movies | Klute, Gandhi, The Mission, Crash, just to name a few. |