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Media literacy of UK youth: Study

October 12, 2009 By Anne Leave a Comment

Nearly a third (32%) of British 12-to-15-year-olds think Web search engines rank and display sites by “truthfulness,” The Telegraph reports, citing UK regulator Ofcom’s 2009 interim Children’s Media Literacy report. It adds that “philosophers will note that the finding raises interesting moral and epistemological questions about what the children thought would happen if they searched for ‘god exists’ or ‘abortion is wrong’.” I doubt the figures would be much different on this side of the Pond, and it does appear kids, parents, and educators have their work cut out for them where media literacy’s concerned. In other findings in the 46-page report, the Telegraph points to “a small but cynical minority” (14%) of survey respondents think the Web sites with top rankings “paid to be at the top of the list”; “the large majority of parents said they trust their children to use the Internet safely – especially boys between 12 and 15″ (87%) … however, almost half” use filtering software in the home; 69% of teen respondents restrict access to their social-network profiles, up from 59% last year; and “in general parents are more concerned about the effect of the Internet on their children than they are about mobile phones, television, computer games, or radio.” And this is just the traditional kind of media literacy – about what’s read, downloaded, and consumed. Now we need to know more about what kids are thinking about what they post, upload, and produce!

Also have a look at my proposed definition of “digital literacy and citizenship”; and here’s The Register’s coverage of the Ofcom report.

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Filed Under: Literacy & Citizenship, Research Tagged With: Ofcom

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IMPORTANT RESOURCES

Our (DIGITAL) PARENTING BASICS: Safety + Social
NAMLE, the National Association for Media Literacy Education
CASEL.org & the 5 core social-emotional competencies of SEL
Center for Democracy & Technology
Center for Innovative Public Health Research
Childnet International
Committee for Children
Congressional Internet Caucus Academy
ConnectSafely.org
Control Shift: a pivotal book for Internet safety
Crimes Against Children Research Center
Crisis Textline
Cyber Civil Rights Initiative's Revenge Porn Crisis Line
Cyberwise.org
danah boyd's blog and book about networked youth
Disconnected, Carrie James's book on digital ethics
FOSI.org's Good Digital Parenting
The research of Global Kids Online
The Good Project at Harvard's School of Education
If you watch nothing else: "Parenting in a Digital Age" TED Talk by Prof. Sonia Livingstone
The International Bullying Prevention Association
Let Grow Foundation
Making Caring Common
Raising Digital Natives, author Devorah Heitner's site
Renee Hobbs at the Media Education Lab
MediaSmarts.ca
The New Media Literacies
Report of the Aspen Task Force on Learning & the Internet and our guide to Creating Trusted Learning Environments
The Ruler Approach to social-emotional learning (Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence)
Sources of Strength
"Young & Online: Perspectives on life in a digital age" from young people in 26 countries (via UNICEF)
"Youth Safety on a Living Internet": 2010 report of the Online Safety & Technology Working Group (and my post about it)

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