Media awareness among Hong Kong primary students

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the extent to which Hong Kong primary students have access to various media, how they evaluate the credibility of the media, what they know about the media, and how they choose among different media, as well as teachers’ expectations towards their students’ views and consumption of media. Since little is known about young children in the context of media education, this paper fills a research gap by studying the media awareness and use of upper primary students. A questionnaire on media awareness and media use patterns was given to the teachers, who were asked to answer the questions from the perspective of their students. The same questionnaire was administered to students during class time. The descriptive statistics of the data were analyzed and compared. Students believed that the most reliable media for providing news was the television, followed by the radio, the newspaper, and the Internet; about half of the students believed that they were capable of distinguishing true from false news; students were more proactive media users than the teachers thought. The findings of this study suggest that more contextual and in-depth approaches to research would be beneficial to assess the media use patterns of students, from which relevant media education models can be derived.