{"id":812,"date":"2008-02-12T14:41:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-12T20:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=812"},"modified":"2008-02-12T14:41:00","modified_gmt":"2008-02-12T20:41:00","slug":"can-you-make-kids-media-literate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2008\/02\/can-you-make-kids-media-literate\/","title":{"rendered":"Can you make kids media literate?"},"content":{"rendered":"

W<\/span>hat exactly is media literacy? The British government takes it terribly seriously. At least it charges the UK broadcast regulator, Ofcom<\/span>, with promoting it. And they chose to promote it with the BBC<\/span> by putting on a news day – called School Report – for kids aged 12 to 13.<\/p>\n

You could retitle the exercise When public sector bureaucracies collide<\/span>…but they called it Lifeblood of democracy? Learning about broadcast news<\/a><\/span>. Their report puts a brave face on this experiment, but basically it reveals that the prerequisite of media literacy is – well – literacy.<\/p>\n

the effects on learning were limited, both in the quality of impact, as well as the number of students displaying significant learning outcomes<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

58 per cent of students showed negligible levels of learning, 33 per cent moderate levels, and just 9 per cent significant levels. Among the dismal findings: <\/p>\n

Weak outcomes generated by the project included:
\u2022 Understanding what \u2018news\u2019 is<\/span>…
\u2022 News concepts such as impartiality, balance and fairness<\/span>
\u2022 Broadening definitions of \u2018news\u2019<\/span>
\u2022 The target audience for news<\/span>
\u2022 The importance of watching news<\/span> … only one student volunteered that she now saw it as important to watch the news
\u2022 Trust and belief in the news<\/span> … \u2018you don\u2019t know, because if the editor has been getting information from people or from the internet or something, internet could just be totally lies like.\u2019
\u2022 The role and skills of the editor<\/span>
\u2022 Changes in listening to radio news<\/span>
\u2022 Changes in the viewing of other TV programmes<\/span>
\u2022 Political awareness and informed citizenship<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Surely they must have picked up something about the Beeb?<\/p>\n

\u2022 BBC values<\/span> \u2013 all student interviewees were asked the question, \u2018do you think you have learnt anything about what the BBC believes in, what the BBC thinks is important, what its values are?\u2019 \u2013 to which only two replied in the affirmative; one had clearly internalised the views of a BBC journalist with whom he had worked: \u2018…all they do is honest … it has made me believe more of the BBC stories I suppose you could say, because they have got that reputation.\u2019; the other had learnt that the BBC was not biased…
\u2022 Public service broadcasting<\/span> \u2013 this potential outcome did not appear on the radar… <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So what was it the exercise really like, then?<\/p>\n

Yeah every lesson we had to listen to Huw Edwards at the beginning and he would go on for ages.<\/p>\n

He was like\u2026 he always said the same stuff and we went over everything he did last week.<\/p>\n

So it ended up\u2026 at the end of it, it was like three times as long as the beginning one.<\/p>\n

And then it ended up being ten minutes at the end, he made this big speech about everything that we had done and what we were going to do, so that was a bit annoying.<\/p>\n

That was it really.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kids, eh – at least one of them was media literate.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What exactly is media literacy? The British government takes it terribly seriously. At least it charges the UK broadcast regulator, Ofcom, with promoting it. And they chose to promote it with the BBC by putting on a news day – called School Report – for kids aged 12 to 13. You could retitle the exercise […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","category-news","tag-bbc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}