Media literacy

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate whether Media Education is effective or not and to discover whether students learning Media Education acquire the skills of Media Literacy. The research question of this study is 'Are there significant difference in the way Form 2 students look upon various aspects of television, such as credibility in news reports, television influence, media violence and awareness of stereotyping'. The sample was made up of200 Form 2 students, 100 girls and 100 boys from four different schools, two of which taught Media Education formally as part of the curriculum, while the other two did not. The research tool for this study was a self-administered questionnaire adapted from Lauri's Masters Dissertation "Television Literacy and Children's Understanding of Television" (1991). Data analysis was conducted by the use of SPSS 14 for the closed ended questions while content analysis was used to analyze the open ended questions. The findings obtained in this study suggest that a significant difference does exist between the groups with regards to media influence, media violence and awareness of stereotyping. Media literate students tend to be more aware of media effects and are capable of analyzing media messages.