A literacy programme
Pubmalin develops and provides, free of charge and on request, educational materials to primary schools that teach children to think critically about advertising in the context of their daily lives.
About
About Mediasmart
Launched in France in 2009, Pubmalin is a non profit media literacy programme for school children aged 8 to 11 years old, focused on advertising.
About us
Pubmalin is funded by the advertising business in France and is developed with an independent expert committee. Our expert committee ensures the quality of the programme by reviewing and approving our teaching materials. It consists of academics, educationalists, but also of representatives of advocacy groups dedicated to families and children.
Media literacy skills
Pubmalin’s materials are based on the main concepts and practices of media literacy teaching.
The four pillars of media literacy education are applied to advertising : a) who produced this text and why ? (production); b) how does this text create meaning ? (language) ; How does this text portray its subject ? (representation); d) How do people interpret this text ?(audience). Thus, Pubmalin aims to develop pupils’ abilities to ‘read’, understand, produce, discuss and write about print, still and moving-image advertising.
They are based on active learning and discovery, and depend heavily on discussion, group work, practising communication in different media formats, and open-ended enquiry. Importantly, they are objective and do not begin from the premise that advertising is intrinsically either harmful or beneficial.
Pubmalin’s approach can be followed throughout the school year : a specific theme has been developed to stick to each Term’s actuality for the children. They can then become actor of their learning. The programme can also be used “à la carte”.
On Pubmalin website, teachers can open the classroom’s workshop, and record in a section with reserved access prints, logos, tag lines created by the children with online tools.
Pubmalin in french primary schools
Launched in 2009, Pubmalin turned out to be a big success : for its first year, namely 2009-2010, more than 1000 schools have already ordered its materials.
Pubmalin in Europe
This programme is also up and running (named Mediasmart) in the following countries : The UK, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Portugal, Hungary.