In the Spotlight
Rhonda Hammer:
Critical Media Literacy
"Rhonda's excitement to educate and share new ways of mass communication, self expression and cultural reading is an inspiring and enriching experience. She ties theory to concrete means of production and provides invaluable access to resources. Rhonda is generous, caring, passionate, brilliant and eccentric in that magical way." - Women's Studies Major Megan Rodman
View some of the video projects Professor Hammer's students have produced:
Media Literacy Video Projects 2008
Media Literacy Video Projects 2007
Rhonda Hammer teaches women's studies, education, film & television, and communications at UCLA and is a Research Scholar at the UCLA Center for the Study of Women. Dr. Hammer has a MA in Communications from Simon Fraser University and a Ph.D. in Sociology from York University. She has authored/co-authored numerous articles on feminisms, cultural studies, media literacy, globalization and social theory and practice. She is the co-author of Rethinking Media Literacy: A Critical Pedagogy of Representation (1995) and author of Antifeminism and Family Terrorism: A Critical Feminist Perspective (2002). She has taught in women's studies, communications, education and sociology in Canada and the U.S. and has worked extensively as an independent, educational and grassroots video producer.
In an interview, Dr. Hammer said, "We are immersed from cradle to grave in a media society. Thus, it is essential that students learn how to understand, interpret, and criticize meaning and messages of media culture. My course, 'Critical Media Literacy and the Politics of Gender: Theory and Practice,' initiated at UCLA in 2002, is designed to meet these contemporary needs through the study of scholarly writings, media analysis and the creation of media texts. It is open to both graduate and undergraduate students.
This course meets 21st century needs for media literacies which involves teaching students to use technologies and theories in a critical and practical manner. Students are required to produce a final group critical media project which can be a video, web page, 'zine,' or PowerPoint presentation using multiple technologies available through a diversity of UCLA resources."
Many students have lauded Dr. Hammer's dedication to students as well as unique media-based courses.
Undergraduate women's studies student Heather Collette-VanDeraa said of Dr. Hammer: "Dr. Hammer is a rare professor to find in today’s highly competitive and sometimes impersonal world of higher education, combining her unique informed perspective, research, and skills to assist students in navigating today’s complex media terrain.... Before I took Dr. Hammer’s course, I had rarely even touched video equipment and it all seemed inaccessible. However, in those ten short weeks, our production team of myself and two other students completed our first short documentary. This was no small task and Dr. Hammer was supportive, encouraging and offering solutions to problems along the way while always available to answer questions or provide feedback."
And women's studies doctoral student Loran Marsan, who recently completed an educational video entitled "Thinking From Women's Lives: Sandra Harding, Standpoint and Science" with Dr. Hammer's help and advisement said, "Rhonda and her course introduced me to technological possibilities and abilities I would not have had access to otherwise. She had the idea for a video project on Sandra Harding and offered it to me as an excellent graduate student project. Her constant encouragement, help, and advise throughout the process made my project possible and I now have extremely marketable media production skills unique in academia outside of media departments because of her dedication and drive to work closely with students."