Geography in the media and media in Geography: routes for discussion

Abstract

This research aims at understanding how the contents studied by School Geography are present in three different types of media (printed newspapers, television and internet) and the way in which media artifacts are incorporated into Geography classes in basic education. In order to do that, we conducted a “bibliographic review”, a research methodology that consists of revisiting content previously published by other researchers about a particular object of study. These contents are present in books, monographs, academic articles, chapters of scientific books, master's dissertations, doctoral theses, articles in printed newspapers, magazines and/or texts available on the world wide web. In our case, we resorted to previously published studies on the relationship between media and Geography. It was found that, in general, the themes studied by Geography are presented in the media in a superficial, distorted and biased way. On the other hand, the insertion of different media languages in the teaching of Geography in basic education, if its use as a mere illustration is overcome, proves to be an auspicious procedure, as it can help students to understand the production of space (in its multiple dimensions) and contribute to the formation of critical readers in relation to media discourses.