Efficacy of Media Literacy Education in Fostering Digital Citizenship Skills among Early Adolescents

Beenish Zaheer; Fouzia Naz

doi:10.58921/jossams.09.01.0448

Beenish Zaheer MPhil Scholar, Department of Mass Communication, University of Karachi, Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan
Fouzia Naz Professor, Department of Mass Communication, University of Karachi, Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan

DOI: https://doi.org/10.58921/jossams.09.01.0448

Keywords: Media Literacy, Adolescents, Digital Citizenship, Educational Settings, Digital Media

Abstract

The prevalence of digital media in adolescents’ lives is rising at an alarming rate. It has become almost impossible to control the bulk of diverse information reaching immature minds through different digital media platforms every single day. The most pressing challenge of this digital era for parents and academic institutions is to strike a balance between exposure to the digital world and early adolescents’ capability to mitigate its adverse effects. This paper emphasizes integrating media literacy into school curricula to help adolescents to navigate effectively through the complex digital landscape where the role of gatekeepers is non-existent. The study assesses how structured and age-appropriate media literacy can actually correspond to improved performance on the S.A.F.E. scale of digital citizenship. The researcher employed a pretest-post-test experimental design for a sample of 30 early adolescents aged between 11 and 13 years selected from a private school in Karachi using the self-selection sampling technique. The post-test responses of the participants confirmed that media literacy intervention notably helps in exercising digital citizenship with full potential.

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