Teaching and learning about audio-visual media: A critical media literacy perspective on the use of games in the contemporary upper-secondary classroom

In this chapter we present a theoretical framework to facilitate teaching and learning about, rather than with and through, audio-visual media in upper-secondary education in Norway. Drawing upon Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model, we show how aspects of production, form, reception, and reproduction can be approached in school contexts to treat audio-visual media as more than allegedly neutral tools for set educational purposes. Arguing for the continued relevance of a critical media literacy tradition also in contemporary digital classrooms, we illustrate the applicability of our approach through illustrating analyses of the historical digital game This War of Mine and the online game platform Roblox.