Secondary education students and media literacy in the age of disinformation (original) (raw)
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The media diet, news consumption habits and disinformation of Spanish university students
2019
Introduction. In the current media environment, news consumption has undergone radical changes in terms of possibilities and forms. This research article focuses on the analysis of news consumption in traditional media, on the Internet and in social media among social science students, and particularly among journalism students. Methods. Data were collected from a sample of 100 third-year and fourthyear students from five public universities located in cities with different socioeconomic profiles, to determine whether environment has an impact on students' behaviour and news consumption habits, and whether this influence is reflected on students' routines, interest and preferences. Results and conclusions. The press, radio and television continue losing audiences and most students now get the news from digital media platforms as they are already disconnected from traditional news media outlets. Technological developments have enabled new ways of dealing with space and managing time, which have an impact on the way people access information, on news content itself and on people's possibilities to learn about what happens around them.
EDULEARN 2021, 2021
Children's routines are increasingly populated by the media, in its multiple formats and contents, which are configured as important agents of socialization together with family, school and peer group. There are studies that conclude that this reality presupposes a range of opportunities for those who have the skills to take advantage of media socially, professionally, politically and individually. Other researches indicate potential risks associated with media interaction, especially with regard the Internet usage, like cyberbullying, cyber predators, phishing, Internet Addiction Disorder, misinformation, among others. In this sense, the importance of promoting the development of skills that allow children to be critical actors towards media, but also active participants and creative media producers, is highlighted. The school institutions play a major role in media literacy, especially if we take into account that media are also a source of learning. However, the task of fostering media literacy in school contexts has presented several challenges for the agents involved, specially if we consider the Portuguese context, where there is little investment in teacher training regarding the field of media literacy. It is in this sense that the present research aims to understand the ways in which media education, and especially news literacy, can be integrated into the formal contexts of learning, so as to contribute to the development of media literacy skills among children. According to the action-research methodology, the empirical study was conducted in a school in Braga District, located in northern Portugal, during 2015, weekly, in two Elementary school classes, under the subject of Education for Citizenship, which is an opcional subject in the Portuguese school curriculum. 40 children, with an average age of 10 years old, participated in the research. Its main target was the planning, implementation and evaluation of an intervention project which was divided into three stages: i) diagnosis, ii) action and iii) evaluation. Educational activities that stimulated the interpretation of the media and current events and the development of a critical perspective towards them were carried out, avoiding situations of risk and manipulation and encouraging the use of their potentialities. Pedagogical dynamics promoted the expression, interaction, participation, creativity and the production of media contents from an inclusive and citizen perspective, placing children at the center of the learning process. The results indicate that although children contact media on a daily basis, specially in the family context, their use is passive and not very reflective. Especially with regard to news consumption, although the children reported that they contact with the news almost daily, they showed little predisposition to reflect on the contexts in which the news are published, on its relevance to society, and on the factors that can influence the news production. In this sense, the results highlight the pertinence and relevance of integrating media literacy into school curricula, in order to help young citizens to develop their critical, reflexive and autonomous skills towards the media and the news about the world.
Critical Insights in Media Literacy Research in Spain: Educational and Political Challenges
Media Studies, 2012
This article proposes a critical perspective on the tradition of media literacy research in Spain in order to examine how Spanish scholars are facing challenges on public policy, and more specifically school curricula, regarding media education. Research in media literacy in Spain (known as educomunicación in Spanish) has moved forward through the interest of scholars and other groups, such as journalists and school teachers, who have raised awareness on the need to develop a critical and creative media learning system. This article will review a) the European and Hispanic heritages on media literacy in Spain, b) main current research groups and projects focusing on media education and c) academic policy on digital competence in formal learning. Lastly, this article will suggest some recommendations on education and policy that will help gain more support among academia, media and citizens within the European and Latin American context.
Media Education in Castelo Branco (Portugal): empowering youth to become media literate citizens
2016
Nowadays almost all knowledge comes to us through media, both printed and digital media. But media messages aren’t a mirror of reality. They are constructions of that reality and the citizens must know how to analyze these messages critically, and how to produce messages using media. The school has an important role in this objective. So, Media Education is more urgent than ever. In the last few years, the European Union made a big effort in the field. The main aim is to reach the Media Literacy levels of countries like Australia, New Zealand or Canada. In 2004 the European Network of researchers in the area was established and that was called Media-Educ. In 2006 the EU published the European Charter of Media Literacy, which defends the integration of Media Education in all curricula and teacher training in the field. In the late 2007, after a on-line public opinion poll with the objective of identifying good practices on Media Education, the European Commission published a document...
2018
The spread of disinformation and ‘fake news’ pose acute challenges for Member States’ education systems. Students (and indeed all citizens) need to develop pertinent competences to navigate these fast-changing environments. Research shows that education in media literacy can have positive outcomes on students’ knowledge, skills and attitudes in analysing and critically understanding the media and disinformation. Media literacy competences are required to actively participate in democratic society; they enable citizens to access, understand and deal with the media, and encourages them to become political agents. This report details the latest research in the area of media literacy and media education with regard to primary and secondary education in Europe. The report is aimed at policymakers, practitioners and researchers in the fields of school education, media and digital policies. It reviews relevant European and international research to better understand how teaching and learning practices can support students’ media literacy in primary and secondary education. It also aims to understand how media literacy education in schools can help address the challenges related to the spread of disinformation.
Children`s Participation in the Critical Reading of News
This work falls within the scope of the activity One Day with the Media, a portuguese initiative which intended to raise awareness of the population to the importance of the media in their daily lives. The journey was addressed to all citizens and coincided with the World Press Freedom Day celebration (3 May), and the 30th anniversary of Grünwald Declaration on Media Education. This paper aims to get to know one of the tasks undertaken in a doctoral thesis, in progress at University of Minho (Portugal), which intends to understand how children make sense of the world, considering that the media are the main drivers of information and constructors of social reality. Our main objective was to understand the connection between children and news, not only in terms of knowledge and perception of content, but also putting them in a perspective of potencial producers and evaluaters of news discourse. For this, we set three specific issues included in a global theme, around which children had to develop a short text: What do you think about information? If you were a journalist, what choices would you do? How do you assess the information? We chose to work with a class of the 4th year (primary school), from a public school. We concluded that children have little interest in news, although they know the main issues aired in the media, especially in television. In general, persists the idea that the media portray negative themes, as the economic crisis. Children consider that journalists should choose to bring out more positive news for citizens. Journalists` work is recognized, and these are often associated with hard-working heroes who seek the truth, sometimes risking their life, in favor of information. Keywords: News, Children, Participation, Media literacy.
The aim of this paper is to examine the role of community, free and university media in Spain as tools for media literacy and as instruments for creating a more critical and communicative citizenry. After a conceptual section, we analyse training processes in this area with regard to the general population and their reference communities, devoting particular emphasis to the involvement of young people. The triangulation research method was based on quantitative (a survey) and qualitative (focus groups) techniques. The results show that the third sector media in Spain act as invaluable tools for the acquisition of skills and competences that are transferable into young people’s professional and experiential sphere, given the ability of these media outlets to identify with their interests, aspirations and difficulties. In a broad sense, these initiatives contribute to expanding the right of communication in two different ways: on the one hand, because they are open to citizen participation in both management responsibilities and content programming; and, on the other, because their decentralized practices provide a laboratory for creative journalism which, in turn, is linked to social movements and other means of expression for citizens (NGOs, associations, etc.).
Political Preferences
The main purpose of this article is to present the link between the level of media and information literacy (MIL) and political preferences of Polish students based on empirical research. MIL is a key issue for today’s societies as it equips citizens with the skills needed to use various media and information channels and exercise their basic human rights. Phenomena such as post-truth, the way people are more inclined to accept arguments based on emotions and beliefs than facts, disinformation and fake news are an important context and subject of ongoing scientific discussions. Keeping in mind the limitations of self-report methods, the authors combine the elements of students’ self-assessment with the questions that test their theoretical knowledge and competences related to recognizing fake news. The research sample consists of 870 students of social sciences and journalism. The results of the research provide detailed knowledge about the level of MIL as well as political preferen...
EDULEARN19 Proceedings: 11th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies, 2019
Media literacy is a complex and fundamental area nowadays and it is required, worldwide, an investment in teachers training. In this chapter, we will consider the Portuguese reality, based on two different training courses, in the context of two media literacy research projects. The consultation of involved teachers revealed that there are four important dimensions to take into consideration in this type of training. These areas contemplate: 1) issues around digital media, 2) the insurance of a better knowledge of the journalistic cultures, 3) the support to the sharing of knowledge among teachers and 4) a need for a more self-confident feeling on teachers' skills to understand and implement media literacy at schools.