A Study on the Factors Influencing Media Literacy among Youth Students

Media literacy amongst the younger generations and the role of schools faced with the spread of new youth practices are topics of increasing interest. The sample of the study included 534 students aged from 12 to 17. On the basis of media literacy framework, this study first describes the current situation of media literacy and then explores the factors that affect the core ability of media literacy among youth students. The results of this study show that the majority of the students had relatively low media literacy and gender, area, diversification of media use, frequency of media use and media education has obviously positive correlation with media literacy. Although 80% of students think that they need media education, their primary interest is to improve their technical skills. We also found that the underlying factor structure of the students´ responses matched the conceptual model (technological dimension, cognitive dimension and ethical dimension), lending content validity to the scale. Based on these findings, the researchers made a number of recommendations.