How should education respond to the challenges of an increasingly mediated world? How can it enable young people to become active, critical participants in the media culture that surrounds them? And how can it keep pace with the complex technological, cultural and economic changes that are currently reshaping the contemporary media environment?These are some of the questions that arise in the area of media education – or media literacy, as it is sometimes called – which is gradually becoming recognized as a key aspect of the school curriculum in many countries. This book takes account of recent changes both in the media and in young people’s lives, and provides an accessible and cogent set of principles on which the media curriculum should be based, and a clear rationale for pedagogic practice. It outlines how media educators should respond to contemporary social, political and technological developments, and to the changing role and function of education itself.David Buckingham is one of the leading international experts in the field. He has more than twenty years’ experience in media education as a teacher and researcher, and has lectured on the topic around the world. Media Education represents a distillation of his key arguments, and an authoritative analysis of the challenges that lie ahead for media educators.