Chu-in-press-Media-awareness-among-primary-students

suggest that more contextual and in-depth approaches to research would be beneficial to assessthe media use patterns of students, from which relevant media education models can be derive

Cited As: Chu, S.K.W., Lau, W.W.F., Chu, D.S.C., Lee, C.W.Y., & Chan, L.L.H (in press)

Media awareness among Hong Kong primary students Journal of Librarianship and

suggest that more contextual and in-depth approaches to research would be beneficial to assessthe media use patterns of students, from which relevant media education models can be derived.

on the taxonomy adopted by today’s media planners in the field of advertising, the concept ofmedia types has been dichotomized into traditional media and new media (Leckenby, 2005).Traditional media generally refer to media that have been in existence before the advent of theInternet (e.g., traditional newspapers, TV, radio advertising, journalism), whereas new mediaencompass any digital media that can be accessed through the Internet (Branstetter, 2011)

The Internet has become one of the most influential media Indeed, the Internet is notexactly a new medium for the current generation of young people Children literally “grow updigitally” (Tapscott, 1998) or, to be more precise, are “born digitally.” Prensky (2001: 2) coinedthe term, “digital natives” to refer to people or generations who grew up and have spent theirentire lives surrounded by and using tools of the digital age such as the Internet, cell phones and

so forth Digital immigrants, on the other hand, refer to adults or individuals who only recentlymigrated to the digital world (Prensky, 2001) In view of the influence of the media on society,the importance and benefits of media education have long been advocated (e.g Lusted, 1991;Tyner, 1992; Considine, 1995; McBrien, 1999) Media and education have been brought together

in two different scenarios: education through the media or education about the media In theformer scenario, the media are used as tools to facilitate teaching, whereas the latter pertains tothe study of the media as a subject in the curriculum

In order to understand the importance and outcomes of media literacy education, it isnecessary to specify what it aims to achieve Although there is no standard definition of medialiteracy, we adopt the definition set by the National Association for Media Literacy Education

(NAMLE), which is “the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate messages in a

variety of forms-is interdisciplinary by nature” (Media literacy defined, 2012, p 1) Media

education plays a crucial role in the process of media literacy and awareness formation(Tanriverdi, 2008) The major goal of media education is to promote critical inquiry, analysis,evaluation, and creative production of media messages in a wide variety of mediums, genres, andforms (Buckingham, 2007) This enables media consumers to analyze messages critically, raisestheir awareness of the political/social purposes behind media messages, offers opportunities forthem to broaden their experience of media, and helps them develop the creative skills necessary

to make their own media messages (Media literacy defined, 2012) Given the intertwiningrelationships between media education and media literacy, one cannot hope to cultivate medialiteracy without first ensuring that an effective media education curriculum is in place

Media education is most effective when teachers have clear expectations about students’media consumption habits and media awareness levels For the purpose of this study, the concept

of media awareness refers to (1) self-described awareness of the existing media in Hong Kong,(2) perceived credibility of various media sources (Kellner & Share, 2005), and (3) levels ofconfidence in distinguishing between true and false news Having clear expectations is crucial tomedia education as more accurate assumptions regarding media consumption habits andawareness translate to better use of classroom time and more effective curriculum strategies,which in turn enhances learning, media literacy, and the effectiveness of media education Forinstance, in the context of media consumption, teachers who emphasize critical inquiry into radiocontent may find that 99% of their Facebook fanatical students do not listen to the radio.Therefore, lessons should instead emphasize how to distinguish facts from fabrications onFacebook Without knowledge of the media consumption habits and awareness of students, theestablishment of effective media education and accurate measurement of the success of sucheducation is difficult (Kellner & Share, 2005) This study hence aimed to assess the mediaconsumption habits and media awareness of upper primary students (average age: 9-12), andteachers’ understanding and expectations concerning these aspects of their students

Problem statement

An accurate understanding of students’ current media consumption habits and awareness is notonly essential for teachers to design a tailor-made media education program for their students togain the maximum benefit but also necessary for assessing the improvement of the students andthe program itself However, little is known about young children in the context of mediaeducation, as the participants of most studies were high school students (e.g Leung, 2003;Leung, 2007; Chu, 2010) Therefore, this paper attempted to fill the research gaps by studyingthe media awareness and use of upper primary students In particular, the current studyinvestigated the extent to which Hong Kong children have access to various media, how theyevaluate the credibility of the media, what they know about the media, and how they chooseamong different media

The second major problem is the digital divide between digital immigrant teachers anddigital native students (Prensky, 2001) Through the Internet and popular social media such asFacebook, children today are exposed to media content from a much earlier stage and at a morefrequent rate than digital immigrants (Prensky, 2001) Early and frequent exposure to mediacontent can promote media literacy development through increased opportunities for informallearning Informal learning refers to learning and engagement that occur outside school/institutional settings For instance, learning how to analyze and evaluate media messages onWikipedia would be an example of an increased opportunity for informal learning in medialiteracy development To this end, it would be unwise for digital immigrant teachers to assumeprematurely that their digital native students are the same as they have always been, and that thesame media education curriculum that worked for the teachers when they were students still suitstheir students now (Buckingham, 2005)

As teachers are those who design and provide media education to students, it is importantfor them to have realistic expectations and an accurate understanding concerning their students’current media consumption habits and awareness On the one hand, under-estimating thesefactors may mean that students waste their time on learning something they have alreadymastered; on the other hand, over-estimating or misunderstanding these factors may meaninappropriate design and misapplied and insufficient focus on media education As teachers’realistic understanding of students’ media consumption habits and awareness is an importantfactor that affects students’ future performance and learning outcomes, the second focus of thecurrent paper is on teachers’ expectations regarding their students’ views and consumption ofmedia From the findings of the current study, teachers will be able to know the extent to whichtheir thoughts are realistic, and corresponding efforts can be made in light of the findings toimplement media education.

Literature Review

Traditional and new media

Traditional media are generally characterized by their relatively limited methods of deliveringinformation about social, political, and economic events (Branstetter, 2011; Leckenby,2005) Newspapers carry factual stories and editorials accompanied by a limited amount ofimagery TV, of course, delivers pictures together with some factual coverage, some editorialcoverage, and a significant amount of advertising In the case of both newspapers and TV,content is usually produced and selected for distribution by an elite minority (Hindman, 2009).Most importantly, it is generally unidirectional That is, there is no productive engagement on thepart of the reader; it is an exercise in information consumption only New media, however, blurthese distinctions in new ways (Branstetter, 2011; Leckenby, 2005) On the web, one might stillencounter traditional journalism on the sites of the main newspapers Blogs are examples of this,but they are qualitatively different for a variety of reasons Even further removed are Twittercomments ('tweets'), YouTube videos, Facebook statuses and many, many more diversephenomena Traditional outlets have been modified with the introduction of the option to leavecomments on the stories presented

Core competencies of media literacy

The umbrella definition coined by the NAMLE on media literacy in 2012 has been widelyadopted among scholars of the 21th century (Daunic, 2013; Garcia, Seglem and Share, 2013;Johnson, Augustus and Agiro, 2012) Similarly, Hobbs (2010, p vii), defines media literacy as a

“constellation of life skills that are necessary for full participation in our media-saturated, information-rich society” These skills include the ability to access, understand, create, reflect

upon, and act with the information that media disseminate (Buckingham, 2005; Hobbs, 2010)

The concept of access does not concern physical access to equipment; rather it concernswith the social, cultural, and technological dimensions that affect one’s access to various media(Buckingham, 2005; Livingstone, 2003) For instance, parental permission to use equipment andone’s knowledge of how to use equipment are important factors that can hinder one’s access tomedia In addition, access is much more than a one-off provision of equipment; it is also about

the skillful use of media tools and the sharing of appropriate and relevant information with others(Hobbs, 2010) Therefore, media literate users need to keep themselves updated with the newtechnologies and skills required to maintain and promote their ability to access informationthrough various media

Analysis and evaluation of media content constitutes the second component of medialiteracy According to Hobbs (2010: 19), this involves “comprehending messages and usingcritical thinking to analyze message quality, veracity, credibility, and point of view, whileconsidering potential effects or consequences of messages.” Hobbs argues that analysis skillsinclude the ability to identify the author, purpose, and point of view of a message; evaluate thecredibility and quality of a message; and recognize and resist stereotypes To advance analysisskills, it is important to build knowledge of how power relationships shape the way in whichinformation and ideas circulate in a culture, considering the economic, political and socialcontext

Content creation involves daily communication through various technologies andexperiences of media production as well as the ability to compose media content creatively(Hobbs, 2010) Traditionally most people are passive recipients of information from mass media,yet nowadays most people are able to participate in creating messages in various forms (textual,audio and visual) and broadcasting through various platforms (YouTube, blogs) with the help ofinformation technology Effective expression is therefore increasingly being emphasized inmedia education Content creation is also about being confident in self-expression and creative ingenerating media content, while being aware of purpose, audience, and composition techniques(Hobbs, 2010)

The concepts reflection and action are metacognitive competencies, as people come toknow the power of communication to maintain the status quo or change the world; consider thepotential risks and dangers of media messages; and understand how differences in values and lifeexperience shape people’s media use and their message interpretation (Hobbs, 2010) People whoreflect and act apply ethical judgment and are socially responsible in online communicationsituations and understand how the concepts of ‘private’ and ‘public’ are reshaped by digitalmedia (Hobbs, 2010) A media literate individual also appreciates and respects legal rights andresponsibilities (copyright, intellectual freedom, fair use, attribution, etc.) and is active inparticipating in advocacy and self-governance at the local, regional, national and internationallevels, using the power of information and communication to make a difference in the world(Hobbs, 2010)

Media literacy, media awareness, and media use of children

Media literacy

Media educators have promoted media education by referring to the positive aspects of medialiteracy Hence, those advocating media education have argued, among other things, that medialiteracy is an essential life skill (Kubey and Baker, 1999; Hobbs 2010; Lee, 1997; Media LiteracyDefined, 2012), and that media literacy can empower young people (Kellner and Share, 2005;NAMLE, 2012; Thoman, 1995) Media literacy is also believed to be a vital component of

democracy education (Kellner and Share, 2005; Tyner, 1992) Moreover, scholars have arguedthat media literacy nurtures higher-order critical thinking skills (Considine 1995; Buckingham,2005) The conclusion has often been that schools should waste no time in introducing mediaeducation into their curriculum Many writers have indicated that media education has become aglobal movement in the past three decades (Brown, 1998; Kubey and Baker, 1999; Lee, 1997;Hart, 1998; Kubey, 1998).

Any media education curriculum will be doomed to failure if the abilities and attitudes ofstudents are unknown Equally important is that teachers have a realistic understanding ofstudents’ attributes in relation to media information On the one hand, if students’ behaviors aremore positive than those expected by teachers (e.g., more students read newspapers on a dailybasis than teachers expect), teachers will probably give unrealistic negative feedback to students

or miss the chance of acknowledging or even reinforcing the endeavors of students Bothoutcomes are unsatisfactory as they can lead to poorer student-teacher relationships (Burnett,2002) In the worst case, extreme negative expectations may lead to stigmatization, which willhave a detrimental effect on student learning outcomes (Madon et al., 1997; Jussim et al., 1996)

On the other hand, teachers holding unrealistically positive views may not realize the need toassist students in the learning process, whereas slightly positive expectations can probablypromote effective learning (Jussim and Harber, 2005)

Children’s awareness of the constructed nature of media messages is not only essential to

a valid evaluation of media content but also forms the foundation of media literacy education(Kellner and Share, 2005; Masterman, 1994) “Media do not present reality like transparentwindows because media messages are created, shaped, and positioned through a constructionprocess This construction involves many decisions about what to include or exclude and how torepresent reality” (Kellner and Share 2005: 374) Masterman (1994: 33) further explained theconcept of non-transparency as follows: ‘‘the media do not present reality, they represent it’’.Giroux stated, ‘‘What appears as ‘natural’ must be demystified and revealed as a historicalproduction both in its content, with its unrealized claims or distorting messages, and in theelements that structure its form’’ (Giroux, 1997: 79-80) Deciphering media messages throughcritical inquiry is thus a crucial beginning for media literacy education Given the importance ofawareness of the non-transparent nature of media messages, it is contended that media educatorsshould have a clear understanding of their students’ ability to recognize the turbid and persuasivenature of media messages This ultimately requires and enables one to challenge the power of themedia to present messages as non-problematic and transparent

Jenkins, Purushotma, Weigel, Clinton and Robison (2009) maintained that theparticipatory culture, which is endorsed by the youth culture, presents three fundamentalchallenges to teachers today The first is the participation gap created by differential access tonew media technologies and thus, the opportunities for engagement, which has engendereddifferent levels of capability among youth The second is the transparency problem, whichconcerns the assumption that youngsters actively reflect on their experiences with the media andcan make sense of what they learn through interacting with the media The third is the ethicalchallenge, which concerns the argument that youngsters should be able to adopt the ethicalnorms needed to deal with the complex online community The authors concluded that all these

challenges require teachers to rethink media education in terms of the core skills andcompetencies that they should endeavor to develop in students.

Children’s awareness and use of media

Various attempts have been made to investigate the media consumption habits of children(Anderson et al., 2007) In Hong Kong, children have easy access to different types of media.Television, newspapers, radio, computers, and Internet access are affordable Free TV programs,radio channels, and newspapers exist The comprehensive study by Anderson, Tufte, Rasmussen,and Chan (2007) investigated the consumption of new media by grade four to six students inDenmark and Hong Kong It was found that 98.6% of the Hong Kong children had TVs at home,96.2% had computers, 94.3% had computers with Internet access, and 42.2% had ghettoblasters

It seems that most Hong Kong children have physical access to TV and the Internet, but not theradio However, as radio channels can be accessed through the Internet or mobile phonesnowadays, the figure by Anderson et al (2007) did not provide a reasonable estimation of thedegree of access to radio channels of Hong Kong children

Preliminary research has also found that children as young as two years old are awarethat TV is a medium through which current or past events that happened elsewhere are presented(Jaglom and Gardner, 1981) Children at a young age tend to believe everything on TV is true,but older ones believe the exact opposite Until the age of five years old, children know that TV

is sometimes real and sometimes not (Messaris, 1986) Even children between eight and nineyears old become aware of and critical of the possible motivation of TV producers (Buckingham,1993) However, it seems that children are not equally capable of evaluating the authority andreliability of websites In the surveys by Livingstone and Bober (2003, 2004), 49% of childrenbelieved that information from the Internet could be trusted, 38% trusted most of it, while 9%and 1% trusted little of it and none of it respectively

Few studies have investigated Hong Kong children’s awareness of the available mediasources We argue that children’s awareness of various media is relevant to their access to media

in two senses First, as children nowadays enjoy more media choices and freedom of selection,their awareness of available media forms the basis for their selection among them Second, theirawareness of media that are unavailable to them may promote children’s desire to gain access tothem As Livingstone (2003: 7) has pointed out that “media access does not simply determineuse”, media consumption is indirectly related to media awareness through increased informallearning opportunities

Finally, it seems that gender probably does not hinder children from physical access tomedia, nor their evaluation of media, but does affect their preferences, choices, and habitsregarding media consumption For instance, although access to a broadband connection does notdiffer for the two genders, more boys (43%) than girls (38%) surf the Net on a daily basis(Livingstone and Bober, 2004) More frequent use of the Internet may be associated with betterskills in using it, thus maximizing the potential benefits from it

Media education in Hong Kong

When Hong Kong was still a British colony, the colonial government worked hard to ensure thatschools did not promote “subversive ideologies” Students were expected to learn only remoteand abstract knowledge Sensitive, controversial, and local issues were excluded from thecurriculum (Morris et al., 2000) However, Lee and Mok (2007) believe that the development ofmedia education has more to do with the changing social and media environments in Hong Kongthan to the handover of sovereignty (Chu, 2009a) As pointed out by Chu (2009a), keencompetition in the media industry gave rise to the phenomenon of tabloidization and the massivereporting of sensational news stories Gradually, more people were dissatisfied with theperformance of the media In response to this situation, there was a call for media education tohelp students to be more discerning in their media consumption

As part of the numerous reforms that the education system in Hong Kong has undergoneover the years, increasing effort has been made to cultivate students’ critical and independentthinking and creativity (Education Commission, 2000) Media education was formallyintroduced as one of the cross-curricular programs in the agenda of the Curriculum DevelopmentCouncil (2000) Furthermore, since 2009, all senior secondary students have been required totake a new core subject called Liberal Studies in the New Senior Secondary Curriculum (NSSC)

in Hong Kong As stipulated in the curriculum document, one of the important aims of thesubject is “to develop multiple perspectives on perennial and contemporary issues in differentcontexts (e.g., cultural, social, economic, political and technological contexts)” (CurriculumDevelopment Council and the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority, 2007: 5).The subject also requires students to engage in an Independent Enquiry Study (IES), with its title

to be selected from six themes, one of which is media

Thus, media education has found its place in the new curriculum Local educators havealso come to understand the benefits of media education First, media education helps developstudents as independent and critical learners (Lee, 2007) Second, as the news presented in themedia is of varying degrees of credibility, media education can equip students with enoughmedia literacy to judge the trustworthiness of news from different sources (Lee and Mok, 2007).However, there is a dearth of systematic research on media education in Hong Kong With this inmind, the purpose of this study was to elucidate the current situation in Hong Kong with respect

to media education by studying Hong Kong students’ levels of media awareness and theirconsumption habits, and whether these deviate from their teachers’ expectations

Research questions

This study aimed to answer the following research questions:

1 What are the media access and understanding of Hong Kong upper Primary students?

2 What are the media awareness and media use patterns of upper Primary students from theirown and their teachers' perspectives?

3 How well do teachers understand the media use and awareness patterns of upper Primarystudents?

To answer the first question, we attempted to identify any possible trends within students’answers To answer the second question, we compared students’ and teachers’ answers on thesame questionnaire We addressed the third question by assessing teachers’ assumptions abouttheir students’ media consumption habits, and how well they were able to predict their students’ability to differentiate between facts and fabrications delivered by media

Procedures

Instructional design

This study was part of a wider project on inquiry project-based learning for upper primarystudents In the project, four primary schools, with students’ academic ability ranging fromaverage to good, were invited to implement a collaborative teaching approach to inquiry project-based learning at upper primary levels Previous studies have shown that it is essential to equipstudents with the necessary knowledge and skills to gather and process information fromdifferent sources such as the Internet and newspapers during the inquiry process (Chu, 2009b;Chu et al., 2011), and media literacy has been identified as one of the essential skills for students

to master One of the authors of this paper held a workshop on media education with teachers inthe four participating schools to introduce concepts in media education to them and to promotethe incorporation of media education into their teaching At the beginning of the workshop, aquestionnaire on media awareness and media use patterns was given to the teachers They wereasked to answer the questions from the perspectives of their upper primary students In otherwords, the teachers were asked to imagine how an upper primary student would complete thequestionnaire

Participants

Written consent was obtained from these teachers to include their questionnaires in this study.The same questionnaire was administered to Primary 4 (Grade 4) students during class time.Consent letters were sent to all parents to ask for their permission to include their children'squestionnaires in this study Out of 408 students, permission was obtained for 248 students Theoverall participation rate was 60.8% A total of 332 questionnaires (248 questionnaires fromstudents and 84 from teachers) were collected from the four co-educational primary schools:from school SPC, 66 questionnaires from students and 36 from teachers; from school FK, 55questionnaires from students and 6 from teachers; from school HS, 63 questionnaires fromstudents and 6 from teachers; and from school KSW, 64 questionnaires from students and 36from teachers

Data collection

The questionnaire was drafted in Chinese and consisted of two sections The first part was made

up of open-ended questions regarding media use and awareness Students had to freely recall the

names of different media to answer the questions The second part was made up of statementsregarding media credibility Students were asked to evaluate each statement on a Likert scalefrom 1 to 5, with 1 representing strongly disagree and 5 representing strongly disagree Thequestionnaire was distributed to teachers of the participating schools before being administered

to students to ensure that the teachers could facilitate their students’ understanding of the

questions The English version of the questionnaire is provided in the appendix

Data analyses

The data from the questionnaires were coded by trained research assistants and then analyzedusing SPSS 16.0 Descriptive statistics such as percentages, means, modes, and medians were

generated ANOVA was conducted to see if there were significant differences in credibility

ratings between different media tools Gender differences for several behaviors were examined

using independent samples t-tests Statistical significance was set at p<0.05.

Findings

Students’ awareness of Chinese newspapers and their most frequently read newspapers areshown in Table 1 Students were asked to name three newspapers, and the top three listed ones

were Apple Daily, Sing Tao Daily and Oriental Daily Apple Daily and Sing Tao Daily were also

the top two listed newspapers from the teachers There was however a relatively large

discrepancy between teachers and students’ awareness of the popularity of The Sun 11.2% of the students listed The Sun while only 4.4% of the teachers named it The teachers were aware that

Apple Daily and Sing Tao Daily were the two most frequently read newspapers among students Mingpao ranked third on the teachers’ list, but only 5.6% of the students reported that Mingpao

was their most frequently read newspaper (ranked sixth on the students’ list)

Table 1 Listing of 3 local newspapers by teachers and students and their most frequently read newspaper

Newspapers Apple Daily

Sing Tao Daily Mingpao

Oriental Daily The Sun Free Daily

HK Economic Times

Ta Kung Pao Sing Pao Others

Listing of 3 local

newspapers

Teacher a 60(23.8%) 60(23.8%) 51(20.2%) 44(17.5%) 11(4.4%) 13(5.2%) 2(0.8%) 2(0.8%) 0(0.0%) 9(3.6%) Student b 171(23.0%) 148(19.9%) 122(16.4%) 134(18.0%) 83(11.2%) 24(3.2%) 7(0.9%) 5(0.7%) 3(0.4%) 47(6.3%)

Most frequently

read newspaper

Teacher a 25(29.8%) 20(23.8%) 14(16.7%) 9(10.7%) 1(1.2%) 7(8.3%) 0(0.0%) 0(0.0%) 0(0.0%) 8(9.5%) Student b 65(26.2%) 57(23.0%) 14(5.6%) 56(22.6%) 15(6.0%) 11(4.4%) 1(0.4%) 1(0.4%) 1(0.4%) 27(10.9%)

Note: Free Daily includes Hong Kong Headline, Metro Hong Kong, and AM730; others include wrong answers and blank answers; a N =

TVB was more popular than ATV among students, but they had difficulty in identifying the most

popular TV channel from TVB among students because the emergence of high definition TV has

meant that there are now more free channels available The situation concerning subscription topaid TV service is shown in Table 3 Fewer students had access to paid TV channels thanteachers had expected About 62% of the teachers thought that there was a subscription to paid

TV services in students’ homes, but in reality, only about 40% of the students subscribed to suchservices at home Students’ awareness of paid TV services and the most common subscription to

paid TV services are shown in Table 4 71.6% of the teachers listed Cable TV, but only 22.6% of the students had this on their list Students were also aware of TVB Pay Vision, which is a relatively new paid TV service compared to Cable TV and Now TV 6.8% of the students listed

TVB Pay Vision, whereas only 1 out of 80 teachers named it Now TV was the most popular

among the students, and Cable TV was the second However, 55.6% of the teachers believed that

if students had a subscription TV, it was Cable TV These findings showed that teachers had wrongly assumed Cable TV to be the most popular paid TV service among the students.

Table 2 Listing of 2 free TV channels by teachers and students and their most frequently watched channel

Free Television Channels TVB related channels ATV related channels Others Listing of 2 free TV channels Teacher

a 89(53.0%) 74(44.0%) 5(3.0%) Student b 273(47.6%) 165(33.1%) 94(18.9%) Most frequently watched free

TV channel

Teacher a 77(91.7%) 1(1.2%) 6(7.1%) Student b 174(34.9%) 27(5.4%) 297(59.6%) Note: Others include CCTV, Hunan TV, Kids’ TV, wrong answers, blank answers, etc; a N = 84, b N = 248.

Table 3 Subscription to paid TV services at home

Frequency

(Percentage)

Teacher (N=79) 48(62.34%) 29(37.66%) Student(N=217) 86(39.63%) 131(60.37%)

Table 4 Listing of paid TV services by teachers and students and subscription in their homes

Subscription of Television Channels

NOW TV Cable TV TVB Pay

Vision

HK Broadband Network

others

Listing of paid

TV services

Teacher (N=84) 17(20.2%) 61(71.6%) 1(1.2%) 0(0.0%) 9(6.2%) Student (N=248) 60(24.2%) 56(22.6%) 17(6.8%) 19(7.7%) 96 (38.7%) Teacher (N=43) 16(35.5%) 25(55.6%) 2(4.4%) 1(2.2%) 1(2.2%)