Who are the bad guys?

Last week, a TV station crew came to our school to tape a presentation to our upper primary kids. My teacher in charge suggested I check it out, so I tried to sneak in without too much notice and sit in the back. I got a few looks from the sixth graders since the show was in Chinese, but I really didn't have too much difficulty keeping a confused look on my face. [Why are dramas/skits geared to children always so weird?]

It turns out the "show" was part of a media education/media literacy effort by the children's channel of Asia TV, involving a number of skits and a post-presentation survey. In a way, it was good to see the effort being made, and yet I wondered throughout the program how effective it was. Is exaggeratedly re-creating a TV ad where a fat girl becomes thin and then asking students whether the girl is right to believe the ad particularly useful? Should we be surprised when students are able to give us the answer we want to hear?

We talked a lot about it in a class I took last year, but I still puzzle over what it means to "teach" media literacy to students. Students are usually more "aware" and "critical" of specific media than we give them credit; yet, I can't say I don't understand why people are concerned about the influence of the media.

I think about the media quite a lot here, actually. I've noticed that there are quite a number of public interest ads on the MTR and on TV, but there are just as many ads that I find troubling. The number of ads for face whitening creams/lotions/masks and slimming spas/machines/pills/creams, for example, is incredible. The latest TV ad that I mentally boo is one that encourages people not to wait to fulfill their "dreams" of losing weight (via going to a slimming center) or enjoying spa treatments just because they don't have money. Their simple solution is to borrow some... Why don't we just say, "Hello, let's promote a culture of instant gratification"?