Media literacy education: A sample research with respect to student, teacher and family

The ultimate objective of this research is to present the effects of media literacy course as an optional subject at primary schools on students, teachers and families with respect to their tecnical abilities and critical comprehension. The probable deficiencies will be put forth through the opinions of the three actors of media education; media literacy teachers as the implementers, students as the active receptive agents and the families as the indispensable part of school-family collaboration. The research is a qualitative one based on written sources and the opinions of the participants consisted of students, teachers and parents. Document analysis and interview techniques are employed in order to collect the data. The first research group is made up of 15 female and 10 male students who are attending or have attended media literacy course at schools randomly chosen among 5 central districts of the city of Antalya for this research. The second research group (10) is composed of the parents of 10 students included in the first research group whereas the third research group (10) is composed of the media literacy teachers of the same students. The students with whose parents interviews are put through, are selected via maximum variety sampling in order to have the oppurtunity to gather information from those with diffferent social and economic backgrounds. The interviews with the remaining 15 students are carried out in order to support the data acquired from the other students. An interview form composed of open ended questions waqs employed during the interviews. The data obtained from the document analysis and the interviews are analyzed through descriptive and content analysis methods. The information gathered from the document analysis, which enables to form the conceptual frame of the study, is analyzed through descriptive analysis, whereas that gathered from the face to face interviews with the participants is analyzed throughcontent analysis methods respectively. The results show that the effectiveness of media literacy course hasn't reached the desired level due to deficiencies with respect to a curriculum concerning the needs and interests of media users, teacher training, obtaining the parent collaboration and preparing the technological conditions at schools required for a proper media education. Key words: Ideology, pedagogy, critical pedagogy, new technologies, media literacy.