Media Literacy Framework Research Articles

An investigation of students and teachers’ new media literacy: the contributing characteristics with the moderator role of gender

This study aims to investigate students and teachers’ new media literacy in addition to the contributing factors with a relatively large sample size. In this sense, the current study is considered unique as it provides findings from both student and teacher participants, and investigates the contributing factors to their new media literacy with the moderation of gender. The new media literacy framework was adopted as the theoretical base, and students and teachers’ new media literacy was investigated in terms of consuming and prosuming dimensions. The data were collected from 1195 students studying in primary, middle, and high schools (including rural and urban areas) and 581 teachers. The findings revealed that teachers’ literacy is higher than students’ at all educational levels for all dimensions of the new media literacy framework. It was also found that students’ educational level and ICT teachers’ subject field positively contribute to their literacies in all dimensions. While teachers’ age negatively contributes only to their prosuming skills, it has no influence on their consuming skills. Finally, no significant moderating effect of gender was observed on these relationships while it is found as a predictor of both students and teachers’ prosuming skills, and also teachers’ functional consuming skills. For these skills in both groups, male participants demonstrated higher literacy than females. Rather than generational differences, the findings underline the role of formal and informal experience in the development of digital literacies, particularly in critical dimensions, and were further discussed based on the current literature.

Tool-HLCA: An intervention to promote the health literacy of school-aged children

BackgroundSchool-aged children are often exposed to health-related information from digital sources. However, there are no interventions in schools to help them deal with these appropriately. Installing health literacy in schools succeeds more easily if it can be linked to existing curricular requirements. This study aims to implement a toolbox to address (digital) health literacy of school-aged children (grades 7 and 8) in German secondary schools by combining existing media frameworks with health literacy.MethodsBased on analysing a mandatory curriculum on media literacy in the state of North-Rhine-Westphalia in Germany and elaborating its commonalities with health literacy, we developed the toolbox for strengthening (digital) health literacy in school-aged children. Currently, the toolbox is being piloted in the school-setting in order to gain feedback from children and teachers.ResultsThe mandatory media literacy framework for classroom teaching in German schools addresses the health literacy core competencies find, understand, appraise and use information. By using that framework and integrating health as a topic, this toolbox fits to the German core curriculum and will ensure that the toolbox is familiar and can be used with low thresholds by schoolteachers. The toolbox addresses digital health literacy including exercises to evaluate health-related information on different online platforms. It provides topic-specific tasks (e.g. coronavirus, vaccination, nutrition) and evaluation criteria for identifying mis- and disinformation.ConclusionsThe toolbox is an opportunity to enhancing (digital) health literacy in school-aged children by highlighting the intersections of the mandatory curriculum on media literacy and the core competencies of health literacy. In the long term, this kind of curriculum analysis serves as a methodological blueprint for educationalists to integrate health literacy into schools in many ways.

“I Don’t Know If It Is Fake or Real News” How Little Indonesian University Students Understand Social Media Literacy

Concerns over fake news have been raised in Indonesia since there has been a significant increase in the spreading of fake news via social media. University students, as the most active social media users, are susceptible to consume and distribute fake news. This study is motivated by the assumption that media literacy interventions help users resist fake news. However, limited studies have specifically addressed their level of media literacy in identifying fake news. Using the new media literacy framework, this study analysed the level of media literacy to process fake news on social media among university students in Aceh. A total of 500 undergraduate students from Syiah Kuala University and Ar-Raniry State Islamic University participated in the survey. Following the survey, 28 students were selected to take part in four focus group discussions. The findings showed that students' degree of media literacy concerning fake news is relatively low. Although almost all students demonstrated a good skill in using multiple social media platforms and understanding information they received, they were not confident in their abilities to distinguish between fake and real news. Surprisingly, some students deliberately share controversial posts on social media for no reason or to please themselves. The study suggests that program of media literacy should emphasise the identification of fake news and the consequences of its distribution. Keywords: Media literacy, social media, fake news, university students, Aceh.

Teaching Adolescents to Communicate (Better) Online: Best Practices from a Middle School Classroom

Digital conversation spaces have the potential to generate powerful collective intelligence, but only when users are thoughtful, reflective, and have experience interacting with diverse ideas. To be able to engage in online conversational spaces in this way, though, is not inherent or natural: it must be practiced. This article will argue that it is essential to have adolescents practice engaging in challenging and professional conversations online with peers in classroom settings. Utilizing a New Media Literacy framework, this article will share impactful classroom practices that help adolescents develop effective online conversation skills. Essential to this pedagogy is a cycle of reflection, where students are asked to revisit their contributions to prior digital conversations and consider the impact that that prior contribution had on the conversation and the community. Asking students to reflect not on how to be kind (as most fear-based “digital citizenship” curriculum does) but rather on how contributions inform, persuade, and otherwise move the conversation forward, helps adolescents to develop a powerful online conversational presence.

Media Literacy: Analyzing Political Commercials

The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) has called for the development of a media literacy framework that goes beyond content analysis into investigating media forms. The M.I.T.S. framework, which stands for main ideas, images, text, and sounds, is inspired by the conceptual work of Marshall McLuhan (1964) and other media ecologists, who recognize screen media tends to generate different sensory responses from audiences when compared to print. The framework encourages students to carefully analyze the various aspects of screen media by isolating each dimension and examining it separately. The goal of the analysis is to foster students’ awareness of how screen technology may evoke unique responses compared to print by playing upon different sensory perceptions. Ultimately, this can facilitate students taking a more critical perspective toward screen media and the various persuasive devices they regularly encounter. Recent political commercials are used to introduce the framework. Extensions and other practical concerns for implementation are also discussed.

Book Review: Media Literacy and the Emerging Citizen, by Paul Mihailidis

Paul Mihailidis Media Literacy and the Emerging Citizen. New York: Peter Lang, 2014. 224 pp.In twenty-five years of teaching theory to graduate students, it has been challenging to find materials that comfortably fit between the undergraduate and doctoral levels of instruction. Although I have advised thirty-one successful MA theses in those years, every textbook adopted for class seemed too simple or overly complex. My colleagues tend to agree that McQuail's Mass Communication Theory1 has good coverage, but it is very challenging for beginning graduate students. While the readings spark questions and good conversation, they also generate frustration and doubt.I think McQuail's structure and seminal discussion about normative and social science theories are more valuable than the full text for our foundation seminar. Another expensive option is Communication Yearbook 37,2 which offers thirteen refreshing studies that advance theories on communication networks, communication models, engagement, entertainment, selective exposure, video game effects, and children and media.For the foundations of our field, it is difficult to do better than the classic readings in The Process and Effects of Mass Communication.3 Here we find the great names: DeFleur, Lasswell, McLuhan, Boorstin, Kurt and Gladys Lang, Lippmann, Hovland, Schramm, Cooley, Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and others. Another look at ideas from a half-century ago leads me to wonder where the depth and breadth can be found that will motivate the next generation of scholars. This semester in the classroom, I will collaborate with graduate students on curating and examining current significant studies, much as the late Vernon Stone did with my peers more than a quarter-century ago.A group of smaller, focused books may be the best approach for offering students context on how to read the research. One interesting option is Media Literacy and the Emerging Citizen: Youth, Engagement and Participation in Digital Culture. Paul Mihailidis, an assistant professor in the School of Communication at Emerson College, offers a book extending earlier media literacy scholarship.Digital media culture, value, and civil life provide a framework for exploring large questions. His conceptualizes the work of Schudson, Bennett, and Dalton:The emerging citizen has integrated digital media culture fully into her life and understands public involvement not primarily by duties (taxes, voting, military service) but equally by engagement (expression, activism, sharing, dialog). These new voices are facilitated largely through digital media, where interactive platforms and social tools are largely replacing traditional avenues for information and communication needs. (pp. 5-6)The media literacy framework that focuses on authorship, format, audience, content, and purpose (p. 35) is an arc that also brings us back around to fundamental theory. Using Jenkins's core skills, Mihailidis offers the reader more key concepts: play, performance, simulation, appropriation, multitasking, distributed cognition, collective intelligence, judgment, transmedia navigation, networking, and negotiation (p. …

Approaches to Learning with Media and Media Literacy Education – Trends and Current Situation in Germany

This article addresses several fundamental questions about faith-based media literacy education in the United States, including how the assumptions, motivations, goals, and pedagogy of those Christians who are operating within a media literacy framework come together to create a unique approach to teaching media literacy. After briefly reviewing Christian engagement with media, as well as the history of faith-based media literacy education in this country, this paper examines the philosophical and theoretical assumptions of scholars and practitioners, identifies practical applications, and concludes by suggesting some ways in which this sub-field might develop in the years to come.

Faith-based Media Literacy Education: A Look at the Past with an Eye toward the Future

This article addresses several fundamental questions about faith-based media literacy education in the United States, including how the assumptions, motivations, goals, and pedagogy of those Christians who are operating within a media literacy framework come together to create a unique approach to teaching media literacy. After briefly reviewing Christian engagement with media, as well as the history of faith-based media literacy education in this country, this paper examines the philosophical and theoretical assumptions of scholars and practitioners, identifies practical applications, and concludes by suggesting some ways in which this sub-field might develop in the years to come.