There is a saying: a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Thoughts are free and rich in meaning but in order to understand them the only option is to catch one, tie it down and put it in a cage and… confine it. Thus, only one bird is left from a the two. What’s better? To ponder the two in the bush, or to make the most of the one in the hand? And then it’s left to be seen whether the bird in the hand is a dove or a duck. And whether the two in the bush are white doves, that might make someone recall the Holy Spirit, or, perhaps, or someone else it might remind of an old postal system.
How to get the message, and the thought, out of a printed sentence or an interesting picture? How to catch all the symbols and implications? How to take into account the impressions that news leave on our actions? Questions such as these were discussed in the media literacy workshop – a game for school students: Bird in the Hand – Dove or Duck? led by the media researcher Ilva Skulte and the participants of the Journalism and Media Literacy club of Rīdze elementary school.
Ilva Skulte has a degree in philology, she has worked in cultural journalism, and she’s a communication and media researcher at various Latvian universities. Associate Professor at the Riga Stradiņš University.