ECREA16-Abstract

611

Thursday, November 10

0 9 : 0 0 – 1 0 : 3 0

CYM01

Media Education

C. Trültzsch-Wijnen

Salzburg University of Education Stefan Zweig, Salzburg, Austria

Media education is a broad field of research as well as educational practice that is focussed on the debates about children’s’ media use, the potential risks

and opportunities they are confronted with as well as the challenges for adults that arise therefrom. Particularly with regards to the recent developments

of ICTs it gets more and more relevant also from the perspective of media and communication research with the promotion of media literacy taking centre

stage in European discourse.The open panel of theTWG Children and Media gives an insight into actual research and debates in the field of media education.

Starting with Lucie Stastna’s and Marketa Zezulkova’s presentation the challenge of mapping and assessing media literacy will be discussed. They will pres‑

ent a research project that is a mandate of the Czech Council for Radio and Television Broadcasting which expects an assessment of media literacy among

the Czech population. Their focus will be on the tension between the demand of media literacy measurements by regulatory bodies and the field of media

education and audience research where a holistic view on the media worlds and experiences of young people have more importance than a standardised

testing of knowledge and skills. Lana Ciboci, Renee Hobbs and Igor Kanižaj will continue with the questioning of the mother tongue media education

model that is common among various European countries. Based on the example of the Croatian educational system and a study conducted among Croatian

teachers they will discuss if an integration of media education in mother tongue classes provides a sufficient environment for promoting media literacy.

By giving an insight on recent discussions in the scientific community of the German language area Niels Brüggen, Isabel Zorn and Valentin Dander will

focus on the challenge of so called ‘big data’collection and their consequences for the field of media education. They believe that the promotion of media

literacy is not enough with regards to the challenge of the permanent collection of private data by digital service providers and other institutions. There‑

fore, they will stress the importance of promoting critical participation and citizenship as a main task for today’s media education. Marije Nouwen, Sofie

Vandoninck and Bieke Zaman will give an insight into the media educational aspects of usability research. They will present a research project that aims to

support the development of embedded tools and apps for parents and teachers that encourage active involvement and participation of adults in children’s

digital activities in the sense of active mediation. The panel will conclude with Isabel Froes’ suggestion of introducing the concept of ‘media penmanship’

in the sense of an alternative or additional approach of media education at schools that is more skills based and more focussed on the use of digital tools

than the concept of media literacy. The presentations will illuminate the field of media education and media literacy research from diverse – in part almost

contradictory – perspectives that lets us expect a stimulating discussion.

PN 024

Mapping Media Literacy or Exploring Children’s Media Experience? Case of the Czech Republic

L. Šťastná

, M. Zezulkova

Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic

Charles University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic

While many of media literacy national studies have moved away from assessing media literacy, including Ofcom that has renamed its media literacy surveys

as media attitudes reports (Ofcom, 2015), the Czech Council for Radio and Television Broadcasting (that holds similar responsibilities in the field of media

literacy as Ofcom does) had recently offered a research fund for ‘Mapping media literacy among the Czech population’. A CEMES research team co-lead by

Necas, Stastna and Zezulkova have won the call and they are currently working on its two phases – with the first being a survey with ‘adults’over 15 years

old and the second being a photo-elicitation group interviews with ‘children’ and ‘young people’ under 15 years of age – that need to be finalised and

published as two reports by August 2016. This paper will discuss the second phase and although it will highlight its design and findings, the main focus will

be on the ongoing tension between policy and regulatory bodies demanding media literacy measurement and media learning research with children and

young people as well as media education that puts exploring and nurturing their holistic media experiences above the everlasting quest for standardised

testing of their knowledge and skills. The field research will be conducted with groups of 4–6 members in three kindergartens with 4–6 yrs olds, in three

primary schools with 8–10 yrs olds and three secondary schools with 12–14 yrs olds. The group interviews (GI) will begin with‘media characters’cards (e.g.

Elsa from Frozen and Taylor Swift), allowing children and young people to express their complex and varied media experience that might not be bordered

by separated media platforms (Woodfall & Zezulkova, 2016). The ‘media platforms’ cards (e.g. TV, gaming consoles, and smartphones) will then be all

brought at once, allowing the conversation to move flexibly from one platform to another. ‘Media technologies’cards (e.g. camera) will accompany media

platforms later on, stimulating a discussion that is more focused on production. The fourth set of cards ‘content providers’ (e.g. Czech Television and Czech

Radio) will allow us to further fulfil our commitment to the original research call. The first part of GI is therefore highly focused on children complex, varied

and fluid media experiences, whereas the second part will bring into discussion samples of print, audiovisual and online media, ‘testing’ children’s media

literacy skills and knowledge in, for example, identifying commercial content, navigating media search and working with information, whilst once again

trying to address the Council’s demand. This ‘juggling’between two approaches and worldviews will be reflected upon in the talk. As a way of illustration,

the presentation will include photographs and participants’quotes.

TWG – Children, Youth and Media

(CYM01–CYM02)