Voices of Media Literacy: International Pioneers Speak : Kate Moody Interview Transcript

 

 

KATHRYN CURRIER (KATE) MOODY

DATE OF INTERVIEW: Thursday, MARCH 31, 2011

INTERVIEWER: TESSA JOLLS

 

(Quote)

 

 

My expectation was that once parents and educators had certain kinds of information about the available research and the probable effects of habitual TV viewing that they would do something about them. And I must say that all the problems are still there and I don’t see that anything much has been solved since my book, “Growing Up on Television,” was published in 1980.

 

 

BIOGRAPHY OF KATHRYN CURRIER (KATE) MOODY

 

Kate Moody is a lifelong educator and author who currently serves on the Alumni Advisory Council of Teachers College Columbia University (where she earned a doctoral degree in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies in Education) and is in a private practice as a psychoeducational therapist. For the last several years she has been researching and writing a book about educational systems in Cuba (with a travel license from the U.S. Government). She has worked for public school systems, Sesame Street, Nickelodeon and PBS. She was editor of Televison Awareness Training (Media Action Research Center 1979) and author of Growing Up on Television (Times Books, 1980). In 1994-2001 she developed and headed the OPEN GATES Advanced Teaching and Telecommunications Center at the University of Texas Medical School and served on the faculty in the Department of Neurology. She began her career as a third grade teacher and reading specialist in Ann Arbor, Michigan. 

 

INTERVIEW TEXT

 

Selected Questions:

 

Why did you become involved in media education?

 

But there certainly had to be a context and an environment where the conditions that built up, that this is what emerged and so I think your description of that watershed year is important to the story. What informed and inspired your work?

 

Are there any other milestones that come to mind as you think about how your own interest, learning and contributions to the field evolved?

 

So, you’re talking about medical issues that really come down to neurology right?

 

How do you see things developing and where you see those kinds of experiences going?

 

We know the media is a big part of everyone’s life, there is a lifelong relationship with it. It’s not going to change, it’s undoubtedly is affecting the brain and processing and the way young people really deal with media and so in that sense we’re almost at a given and that it will continue to be there.

 

What would you like to see happen?

 

In your work you see some of the negative outcomes because of the patients and clients that you’re dealing with and in a sense those manifestations of the effects are really important to look. Do these outcomes warrant serious consideration and examination?