IV. 3. Critical Reading

For this article read the article Promoting Positive Fatherhood in Kosovo: http://archive.kosovotwopointzero.com/article/2139/promovimi-i-atesise-pozitive-ne-kosove

You can conduct this exercise alone or in groups. If you will work in groups split into three groups. Each group will read the same article but answers the different questions below.

Once you have read the article discuss amongst yourselves and answers the following questions. Write down your answers. Once you are down take turns sharing your answers and discuss amongst yourselves.

 

Questions for Group 1:

• What assumptions about the audience are made in the article?
• What “shared meanings” does it rely on?

 

Questions for Group 2:

• Do you think the article can change what people think about the issue?
• Do you think that people from different age groups, genders, social settings (city, village, employed, unemployed, educated, uneducated, etc.) have different positions on the issue? What are those positions?

 

Questions for Group 3:

• How have you discussed the issue with your friends?
• How have you discussed the issue with your parents?
• What changes in gender roles have you noticed in your family, your community, and in the wider social setting?

 

Discussion

Once you have finished the exercise you can refer to the following for additional discussion.

The exercise is meant to unpack the following for the participants:

• Issues of inclusion and exclusion in media reporting – who is represented and used to stand in for society as a whole; voices that are excluded
• Different readings given to stories by audiences based on social position (gender, class, ethnicity) – audiences giving meaning to stories
• Discuss how media helps shape social reality by presenting issues in particular ways
• Helps to further understand that the word link exercise shows the importance of culture (how it shapes meanings we create) and how meanings are not homogenous

Shared meanings are shared within particular groups and can differ within one society. These differences are reflected through gender, class and ethnic relations. The “Whose Your Daddy” article depicts a white professional middle class family. The trend the article speaks about depicts changing gender roles, which are not to be found equally throughout American society. For example, single income families, working class families, families in traditional settings, and groups marginalized based on race and ethnicity, are not included in the article. Similarly, the article Promoting Positive Fatherhood in Kosovo, speaks of professional men in an urban Kosovar setting, and two income families.

The examples used in the module do not necessarily refer to mainstream conceptions of inclusion and diversity. Instead of identifying a marginalized group, and adding it in, the examples aims to identify the norm and through that norm discuss issues of inclusion, exclusion, and diversity. So, instead of addressing parenthood through the traditional ‘woman as caregiver and professional’ debate, the examples show that the debate is much more complex.

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