ECT Brownbag: Jolie Matthews

The Historical Imaginary, Dominant Narratives, and Critical Media Literacy

When: Thursday, October 22, 11am– 12pm EST
Zoom Link: https://nyu.zoom.us/j/91044407438

This talk focuses on how narratives about the past shape perceptions of different populations in the present. I discuss the historical imaginary, a society’s “common knowledge” of the past, which encompasses media, education, and political rhetoric and imagery. Popular media representations of the past result in deliberate choices in terms of whose stories get primacy and visibility in a society’s historical imaginary, and whose do not. Popular historical and pseudo-historical media may seem innocuous in that they’re not “real history,” but they have important implications for who is positioned as “We” and who is “Other” in a society’s dominant narratives about the past. Narratives in media and history influence narratives and perceptions of people in daily life, which in turn shape how audiences react to narratives in media and history. K-12 education and wider media further contribute to the historical imaginary by positioning textbooks, documentaries, and other media representations as neutral and/or organic sources of information instead of as narrative choices that perpetuate a particular point-of-view. Understanding and teaching about the historical imaginary expands upon and directly ties to the goals of critical pedagogy and critical media literacy.

About the speaker

Jolie C. Matthews is an Assistant Professor of the Learning Sciences and a Faculty Associate at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy. Her research focuses on the relationship between popular culture and historical consciousness, media literacy, dominant narratives, bias and source credibility, and social media behavior norms.

She received her PhD in Learning Sciences and Technology Design from Stanford University, where she was a research assistant with the Stanford University YouthLab, the Joint Media Engagement Group, and the Wallenberg Media Places Grant for Digital Humanities. An alumnus of NYU, she received her BA from Gallatin, with a concentration in Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Studies. She has also been a research intern for the Social Media Collective at Microsoft Research New England in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her work has been published at places such as the Journal of the Learning Sciences, New Media & Society, Popular Communication, Democracy & Education, and The Social Studies.