Child participation in the design of media and information literacy interventions: A scoping review and thematic analysis

The article presents findings from a review of scientific articles about media and information literacy interventions targeted at children and adolescents. More specifically, the review centers on the quantity and quality of child participation in the design of such interventions. The findings indicate that designs with high levels of child participation constitute a minority in the sample. Most of them aim at “behavior-relevant” outcomes, e.g., reduce smoking or obesity. Interventions aimed at “media-relevant” outcomes, e.g., helping children to become competent media users, seem less widespread. Based on these findings, we argue that top-down initiatives to the promotion of media and information literacy among children and adolescents run the risk of becoming irrelevant to the target group, and that child participation in the design of such interventions should be seen as an end in itself, at least if we subscribe to the idea of children’s rights in the digital age

Media Literacy Education Program Evaluators: What’s the Job Description, Again?

School program evaluation researchers confront overlapping questions concerning our roles in the field. In the quest for “good” data and “The Truth,” am I a shrewd researcher before all else? In the interest of establishing respectful, reciprocal relationships with my school partners, am I first a gracious school guest, prepared to sacrifice research integrity for the sake of goodwill? Or, for the sake of students, am I foremost an advocate for the intervention, pressing an agenda I firmly believe in? As an ingénue who recently turned toward the field of media literacy education (MLE), which had long attracted me but did not square with my “Associate Professor of Psychology” title or graduate training, I grapple with these questions

THEORY OF PLANNED BEHAVIOUR: MEASURING ADOLESCENTS MEDIA LITERACY AND ALCOHOL DRINKING EXPECTANCIES

Despite the accumulating research on effects of alcohol advertising content on youths and the several studies that have explored media literacy intervention in different contexts, there is still a need to quantitatively model if media literacy significantly alters adolescents drinking expectancies and which component of media literacy significantly alters these drinking expectancies. To achieve this objective, the Solomon-four experimental research design was applied within the context of the theory of planned behaviour and the media literacy framework to examine the alcohol expectancies of media literate and illiterate adolescents. With a sample size of 860 adolescents in Lagos State, the paper hypothesized that there is no significant difference in the level of alteration caused by the various components of media literacy to the drinking expectancies of media literates and illiterates. The findings of the study revealed that there is a significant difference between media literacy treated and untreated adolescents; however, media literacy appears to exert a paradoxical effect on the drinking expectancies of adolescents. Based on this, the paper recommends that the operational media literacy framework as presented and used in Primark (2006) to be revisited and modified to avoid conflicting outcomes and that media literacy could be adopted as one of the ways to reduce alcohol drinking expectancy in youths.KEY WORDS: Drinking expectancies, Media literacy, Adolescents, Alcohol advertising, Planned behaviour

PENGARUH LITERASI MEDIA TERHADAP PERILAKU PENGAMBILAN RISIKO PADA REMAJA AKHIR

Saat ini, penggunaan internet dan media sosial sangat masif di kalangan remaja akhir. Seiring terpaparnya remaja akhir terhadap konten media sosial maka semakin mempengaruhi remaja akhir dalam perilaku pengambilan risiko yang dipaparkan di media sosial. Untuk itu, literasi media diperlukan agar remaja akhir dapat terhindar dari perilaku pengambilan risiko yang tinggi. Tujuan penelitian ini untuk melihat pengaruh literasi media terhadap perilaku pengambilan risiko pada remaja akhir. Metode penelitian pada penelitian ini adalah metode kuantitatif yang dianalisis menggunakan analisis regresi linier sederhana. Jumlah sampel pada penelitian ini sebanyak 200 orang remaja akhir dengan menggunakan teknik pengambilan sampel cluster sampling. Alat ukur yang digunakan pada penelitian ini adalah Adolescent Risk-Taking Questionnaire (ARQ) dan New Media Literacy Scale (NMLS). Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa literasi media berpengaruh signifikan terhadap perilaku pengambilan risiko pada remaja akhir sebesar 66%

Media literacy's role in the mitigation of disinformation effects on substance misuse

Objective: Misinformation and substance use both increased substantially during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study examined potential links between misinformation beliefs and substance use among adults, along with the potential for media literacy to mitigate misinformation's influences on problematic use of widely available substances of misuse.Method: Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test a theoretical model of media literacy's effects on substance use, fully mediated by disinformation beliefs, with a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults recruited through a Qualtrics panel of adults using census-based quotas for geographic region, population density, ethnic diversity and gender (N = 1264). The sample was 51.5% male (N = 651); 46.7% female (N = 591); 1.1% nonbinary (N = 13); and 0.7% (N = 9) not reporting.Results: Media literacy for source of news positively associated with media literacy for content of news (b = 0.814, p < 0.001). Media literacy for content of news then positively associated with science media literacy (b = 0.192, p < 0.001). Science media literacy then negatively associated with disinformation beliefs (b = -0.586, p < 0.001), and COVID-19 disinformation beliefs associated with an increase in substance use (b = 0.466, p < 0.001). Disinformation beliefs also associated with alcohol and sleep medication co-use (odds = 1.956, p < 0.05).Conclusions: Results demonstrate media literacy's value for substance misuse prevention and effective public health messaging

Food for Thought: A Novel Media Literacy Intervention on Food Advertising Targeting Young Children and their Parents

The prevalence of obese children has tripled during the past three decades. While lack of physical activity and unhealthy eating have been the primary focus of public health efforts, media has a significant influence on food choices and food consumption. The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine if a media literacy intervention would increase knowledge and decrease the persuasive nature of unhealthy food advertisements. Parents (n=12) and their children (n=15) were recruited from two Boys and Girls clubs. They participated in a 2-hour educational, intervention workshop. The parents completed a pretest and a posttest assessing changes in knowledge and attitudes about food advertisements. Volunteers from the workshop signed up to participate in focus groups. There were two focus groups with parents (n=5) and two focus groups with children (n=6). According to quantitative results, there were positive changes in parents’ media literacy knowledge after the workshop. Focus group data highlighted that children learned about the purpose of advertisements and how to be more critical of unhealthy food advertisements. In addition, both parents and children revealed positive changes regarding their intentions and behaviors in eating healthy. Media literacy interventions are a promising strategy for educating parents and young children about food advertisements which can help address childhood obesity

COVID-19 disinformation and political engagement among communities of color: The role of media literacy

Communities of color, suffering equity gaps and disproportionate COVID-19 effects, also must resist ongoing disinformation campaigns designed to impede their political influence. A representative, national survey (N=1264) of adults conducted June-July 2020 found that nonwhite respondents tended to report less COVID-19 knowledge, media literacy, and voting intent than white respondents, but more acceptance of COVID-19 disinformation and for risks associated with protesting for social justice. General media literacy skills are associated with COVID-19 knowledge and political engagement, while science media literacy is associated with less acceptance of COVID-19 disinformation. Media literacy skills appear important for empowering and informing communities of color

A Theory-Grounded Measure of Adolescents\u27 Response to Media Literacy Interventions

Media literacy interventions offer relatively new and promising avenues for the prevention of risky health behaviors among children and adolescents, but current literature remains largely equivocal about their efficacy. We propose that (a) much of this ambiguity stems from the lack of conceptual clarity in the literature regarding the cognitive process through which media literacy interventions influence their target audience, and (b) that the ability to track this cognitive process by means of valid and reliable measures is necessary to evaluating the effects of media literacy programs on their audience. Accordingly, the primary objective of this study was to develop and test theoretically-grounded measures of audiences’ degree of engagement with the content of media literacy programs based on the recognition that engagement (and not participation per se) can better explain and predict individual variations in the effects of these programs. We tested the validity and reliability of this measure with two different samples of 10th grade high school students (Study I N = 294; Study II N = 171) who participated in a pilot and actual test of a brief media literacy curriculum. Responses to an inventory of items measuring evaluation of the media literacy program underwent an exploratory factor analysis for Study I. Four message evaluation factors (involvement, perceived novelty, critical thinking, personal reflection) emerged and were confirmed through CFA (Study II), demonstrating acceptable reliability as scales as well as item-level convergent validity and convergent and discriminant validity with other measures. We discuss the implications of including process of effect measures in the design and evaluation of media literacy interventions

Paradigm changes and new challenges for media education: Review and science mapping (2000-2021)

Information, communication, and digitalization technologies have driven the unlimited access to knowledge, thereby promoting creativity, economic and cultural development, and the emergence of a global world at breakneck speed over recent decades. Across its multiple dynamics, this digital revolution has opened new educational opportunities that are closely connected to emerging technologies and, recently, to artificial intelligence. These advances have had an unexpected impact on people’s lives, altering the values of society and our understanding of the role of education and the modern school in this scenario of global communication. In this context, media education arises from the clear influence of electronic devices and digital technology on society. The aim of this study is to review our understanding of the scientific relevance of the terms “media education” and “educommunication” during the last two decades to describe its evolution on the basis of its terms, locations, thematic stages, and methodological approaches using a systematic quantitative–qualitative review of 598 articles collected from the Web of Science between 2000 and 2021. The results suggest that such scientific interest can be divided into two stages, viz. reflections on media education in its terminological diversity (2000–2012) and measurement, implementation, training, and educommunicative digitization in terms of technological–digital development (2013–2021). We conclude that studies in this transdisciplinary field, which have historically been spread across North and South America, Europe, North Africa, and the North/South East Asia–Pacific region, have broadened their perspective from early criticism of media education to consider the “glocalization” of media education, directing interest toward the cultural digitization of the Global South, algorithmic literacy, and the digital and ethical–critical (self-)management of individual and collective identity

Cambios de paradigma y nuevos retos para la educación mediática: Revisión y mapeo científico (2000-2021)

Information, communication, and digitalization technologies have driven the unlimited access to knowledge, thereby promoting creativity, economic and cultural development, and the emergence of a global world at breakneck speed over recent decades. Across its multiple dynamics, this digital revolution has opened new educational opportunities that are closely connected to emerging technologies and, recently, to artificial intelligence. These advances have had an unexpected impact on people’s lives, altering the values of society and our understanding of the role of education and the modern school in this scenario of global communication. In this context, media education arises from the clear influence of electronic devices and digital technology on society. The aim of this study is to review our understanding of the scientific relevance of the terms “media education” and “educommunication” during the last two decades to describe its evolution on the basis of its terms, locations, thematic stages, and methodological approaches using a systematic quantitative–qualitative review of 598 articles collected from the Web of Science between 2000 and 2021. The results suggest that such scientific interest can be divided into two stages, viz. reflections on media education in its terminological diversity (2000–2012) and measurement, implementation, training, and educommunicative digitization in terms of technological–digital development (2013–2021). We conclude that studies in this transdisciplinary field, which have historically been spread across North and South America, Europe, North Africa, and the North/South East Asia–Pacific region, have broadened their perspective from early criticism of media education to consider the “glocalization” of media education, directing interest toward the cultural digitization of the Global South, algorithmic literacy, and the digital and ethical–critical (self-)management of individual and collective identity.Las tecnologías de la información, la comunicación y la digitalización han expandido el acceso infinito al conocimiento, a la promoción de la creatividad, al fomento económico y cultural, y al surgimiento de un mundo global, en un vertiginoso crecimiento en las últimas décadas. Esta revolución digital, en sus múltiples dimensiones, ha traído consigo nuevas oportunidades para la educación, muy conectadas con las tecnologías emergentes y, recientemente, con la inteligencia artificial. Estos avances han supuesto una brusca irrupción en la vida de las personas, trastocando el mundo de valores y la propia concepción del papel de la educación y la escuela moderna en un mundo globalmente comunicativo. La educación mediática, en este contexto, emerge a partir de la evidente influencia de los dispositivos electrónicos y la tecnología digital en la sociedad. Este estudio pretende hacer un barrido sistemático y comprender la relevancia científica de los términos “educación mediática” y “educomunicación” en sus últimas dos décadas, aproximándose al proceso evolutivo de la educación mediática a través de sus términos, lugares, etapas temáticas y enfoques metodológicos por medio de una revisión sistemática cuanti-cualitativa de 598 artículos extraídos de Web of Science entre 2000-2021. Los resultados apuntan hacia un interés científico dividido en dos etapas, que contemplan la reflexión de la educación mediática en su diversidad terminológica (2000-2012), y a la medición, implementación, formación y digitalización educomunicativa en materia de desarrollo tecnológico-digital (2013-2021). Se concluye que los estudios en este campo transdisciplinar, extendidos históricamente por América del Norte y el Sur, Europa, Norte de África, y Norte y Sudeste de Asia-Pacífico, han ampliado su perspectiva desde la tradicional lectoescritura crítica de los medios hacia una mayor “glocalización” de la educación mediática, dirigiendo su interés hacia la digitalización cultural del sur global, la alfabetización algorítmica, y la (auto)gestión digital y ético-crítica de la identidad individual y colectiva.Este trabajo se ha elaborado en el marco de la Red Euroamericana de Investigación en Competencias Mediáticas para la Ciudadanía (Alfamed), con el apoyo del Proyecto I+D+I (2019-2021), titulado «Youtubers e intagrammers: La competencia mediática en los prosumidores emergentes», con clave RTI2018-093303-B-I00, financiado por el Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades de España y el Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (Feder), y del Proyecto I+D-i (2020-2022), titulado «Instagrammers y youtubers para el empoderamiento transmedia de la ciudadanía andaluza. La competencia mediática de los instatubers», con clave P18-RT-756, financiado por la Junta de Andalucía en la convocatoria 2018 (Plan Andaluz de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación, 2020) y el Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (Feder)