By Megan Boler
Associate Professor Department of Teaching & Learning
Virginia Tech

"America Strikes Back? Critical Media Literacy in Times of War" is a multimedia, Flash 6 website designed to engage users to analyze contradictory stories about U.S. foreign policy as represented in domestic and international print media. Focusing on U.S. military attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan, the site illustrates how media offer radically different reports on such issues as:

How Many Protested the War
Effects of Sanctions on Iraq
Reporting Civilian Casualties
Justifications for War.

To demonstrate critical reading of print news, the user is asked to consider conservative, liberal, and progressive bias, and how bias is constructed through headlines, tone, word choice, and sources cited.

Funded by IIIT, the site was conceived and directed by Dr. Megan Boler, Associate Professor of Teaching and Learning, with extensive research assistance from Science and Technology Graduate students Jonson Miller and Brent Jesiek. The Flash site was designed by Julie Keeton, IIIT and was first launched in September, 2003. It has been presented at the NOVA Research Showcase for Congressman Jim Moran; featured at the Digitales International Digital Media Conference in Brussels, Belgium in December; and will be presented at the National Media Literacy Conference in Baltimore this summer.

Response to the site by educators, users, students and activists has been enthusiastic. The integration of flash design, photographs, and visual illustration of media analysis makes for a user-friendly site.

The research team is seeking additional funding to add modules on U.S. foreign policy in relation to Israel/Palestine and to Colombia, South America. The creators also hope to create an HTML version of the site that will be searchable and accessible to a wider audience, as the comparative media analyses and information included within the modules offers an extensive and unique educational resource for those interested in studies of political theory, communications, media, and critical thinking.

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