The Importance of Media Literacy in the Knowledge-Base Society: The Effectiveness of Training in the Media Literacy Skills in Iran

Access for all citizens to invest in the production and dissemination of knowledge and training needed to increase the level of media literacy strategy determines the pace of development is based on knowledge. Lifelong learning in a knowledge society means that it is important to understand how adults learn and also to facilitate learning and promoting life-long thinking about.

Learning from the traditional means of acquiring knowledge. Today it means to learn the skills necessary to join the society of knowledge and cognitive development has evolved. Therefore, education is one of the main processes of Knowledge Society. Information technology, communications and computing have provided new tools to facilitate learning.

In the current era, the media and its wide usage by the adolescents creates the need of acquiring the skills and teaching the media literacy teachings and mastery of such skills to the students. The present research aims at investigating the effectiveness of training in the medial literacy skills of high school students. The present research employed a semi-experimental method. The experimental and control groups comprised 120 individuals studying in the high schools of Kerman city that were selected through cluster sampling in the year of 2013. The control group received one term of 90-minute weekly sessions.

The data gathering tool was a 40-item questionnaire which was administered in the pre-test and post-test. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics by SPSS software. Results indicated that, the rate of media literacy, four components and its related skills with total average of 2.2 (from 5) is in a weak level. Subsequent to the training, the students in the experimental group scored significantly higher on skills such as usage of media, analysis of media messages, the ability to product and send media messages, critical thinking in using the media and facing the media messages. Based on this, the mean of media literacy reached by 3.64, which is a good level.

Overall, media literacy training is effective in the increase of students’ media literacy and it’s necessary to include it into the curriculum of the schools.