Screen education: Contemporary university students' contexts and problems of media literacy

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate how Chinese university students efficiently understand and utilize the screen media, especially when the mass media have been the basic approach to gaining information for them. In order to give a full understanding of the issue of media literacy education for Chinese college students, three questions are going to be discussed in this article by using the historical analysis method. The first question is why the screen media have become an education problem? Through looking back the evolution of screen media and the development of media literacy education, it is found that media literacy is only one of education problems in a certain context, which is concerned by some countries. The second problem is what the context and the problem of media literacy education for Chinese college students is? Although the contexts and problems of media literacy education are different from each other in British, Canada, America and Japan, the study of media education in these four countries starts from its real context, and based on which some issues about screen education are raised and studied and solutions are proposed. The context where China carries out the media literacy education is the public's general rejection of the secreen media culture arising from the lack of the media literacy education. The third problem is how to respond to theoretically and deal with in practice Chinese current college students' media literacy edacation? We need frist set up the course of media literacy education in universities as soon as possible, and complete two changes in order to strengthern the theoretical and practice response. One is the change from the traditional concept of education to the inspirational and participatory concept, and the other change is from the education mode of teaching knowledge to the mode of suportive learning. This can promote the college students' healthy development in using screen media, so as to achieve the harmony between the man and screen.