Factors Affecting Media Literacy of Early Teenagers

World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology
International Journal of Social, Behavioral, Educational, Economic, Business and Industrial Engineering Vol:6, No:10, 2012
Factors Affecting Media Literacy of

Early Teenagers
Khajornjit Bunnag
Abstract²The purposes of this research are: 1) to study the media influencing media literacy for future mass media research;
literacy of early teenagers, and 2) to study the interaction between Mihailidis (2008¶V ³Beyond Cynicism: How Media Literacy
gender and timing of media exposure that affects the media literacy Can Make Students More Engaged Citizens" which explored
of teenagers. The sample of the study included 400 young people the effectiveness of media literacy in U.S. higher education
aged between 11 to 17 and who were living in Bangkok. The data based on two fundamental questions about the outcomes of a
was collected using questionnaires. Two-way ANOVA was used in media literacy course: do students become more
analyzing the collected data. The result revealed that gender and knowledgeable consumers of media messages?, and do
timing of media exposure affected the media literacy of early students, armed with that knowledge, become more engaged
teenagers with statistical significance at the level of 0.05.
citizens? and Bordac ¶V ³Identifying Undergraduate
Media Literacy Skills: An Exploratory Study Of Faculty
International Science Index, Humanities and Social Sciences Vol:6, No:10, 2012 waset.org/Publication/7929
Keywords²Gender, Media Literacy, Teenager, Timing of Media Perceptions´ ZKLFK ZDV D TXDOLWDWLYH DQG H[SORUDWRU\ VWXG\
Exposure. featuring interview of a small sample of faculty members (n =
11), each of whom use visual content in their teaching, to
I. INTRODUCTION identify the attributes they identify as media literacy skills for
T HE advancements of communication technologies and

globalization have enabled rapid communications and
widespread dissemination of information across the globe,
undergraduate students;
The situation of media literacy and researches mentioned
abRYH KDYH LQLWLDWHG WKH LQWHUHVW WR VWXG\ ³)DFWRUV $IIHFWLQJ
driving the world into the information era when societies can 0HGLD /LWHUDF\RI(DUO\7HHQDJHUV´ WR OHDUQDERXW WKH PHGLD
be easily overwhelmed by information. This represents two literacy of early teenagers and whether there is an interaction
sides of the same coin as information can drive both positive between gender and timing of media exposure that affects the
and negative changes in the society. In the society where media literacy. The results from this study will be used as
people lack understanding and are unaware of the powerful guideline for proper development of media literacy among
influence of information on their thinking and behavior, they early teenagers.
can be easily persuaded into negative direction particularly
teenagers who by nature are sensitive and make decision based
II. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
on emotion, thus being at the highest risk of media influence.
Media literacy refers to knowledge and skills that enable a 1) To study the media exposure behavior of early teenagers.
recipient to understand the purpose and motive of his/her 2) To study the level of media literacy among early
message receipt as well as those of the sender, the production teenagers.
and technique used by the sender to draw attention of the 3) To study interaction between gender and timing of media
recipient as well as the culture, economic system and politics exposure that affects the media literacy of early teenagers.
that may affect the creation of message meaning. It also
includes the ability to comprehend the impacts of message
receipt [1]-[7]. Therefore, the concept of media literacy has
III. HYPOTHESIS
been raised in many countries to protect the people including
teenagers from negative influence of media. There is an interaction between gender and timing of media
Media literacy helps teenagers to wisely expose to media, exposure that affects the media literacy of early teenagers.
properly select, and use information to its maximum benefits.
Many scholars are interested in media literacy in various
aspects, e.g. Virojtrairatt (1997)¶V ³An Analysis of Media IV. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
Literacy Levels for Higher education Students in Thailand ´
which studied the concepts and attributes of media literacy and 1) Factors affecting the media literacy of early teenagers are
analyzed levels of media literacy of 504 first-year universities examined.
VWXGHQWVLQ%DQJNRNPHWURSROLV3KLHQUXQJURM¶V³Study 2) The result of this research can be used by the public and
of Concepts to Determine Variables Influencing Media private media organizations and related parties as guideline to
Literacy for Mass Media Research´ ZKLFK IRFXVHG RQ WKH determine policy to properly promote the media literacy
definition of media literacy and concepts to measure variables among early teenagers.
Khajornjit Bunnag is with School of Communication Arts, Bangkok

University, Bangkok, Thailand, (e-mail: [email protected]).
International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation 6(10) 2012 2599 scholar.waset.org/1999.10/7929
V. METHODOLOGY According to the analysis of statistical data explaining

This study utilized a survey method and purposive sampling media literacy of 400 early teenagers, the result showed high
method. Among the total population of 804,419 (Office of the media literacy score of 3.59. Classified by gender, the female
National Statistics, 2010), 400 early teenagers aged between samples had high level of media literacy which scored at 3.68,
11 and 17 and living in Bangkok were selected as the sample. higher than 3.46 of the male samples. On timing of media
Questionnaire was used as data collection tool and the internal exposure, the samples who exposed to the media in the
consistency FRHIILFLHQW &URQEDFK¶ alpha) was used to morning had high media literacy with the score of 3.83, which
investigate its reliability, which was found to be 0.926. The was higher than the score of 3.62, 3.55 and 3.38 when being
data was analyzed by basic statistics and two-way analysis of exposed to the media in the evening, night and noon time
variance (two-way ANOVA). respectively. It can be concluded that the male and female
To measure the media literacy of early teenagers, the level samples had equally high level of media literacy when they
of scores were interpreted as follows: average score of 4.21- were exposed to the media in the morning.
5.00 means very high media literacy, average score of 3.41- Considering the media literacy of 8 sample groups, the
4.20 means high media literacy, average score of 2.61-3.40 male samples who exposed to the media in the morning had
means moderate media literacy, average score of 1.81-2.60 high media literacy score of 3.93, followed by the female
means low media literacy, and average score of 1.1.0080 samples who exposed to the media in the morning, having
means very low media literacy. high media literacy score of 3.75. Ranking at third place was
the female samples who exposed to the media at night, having
high media literacy score of 3.74, which was very close to the
second. The male samples who exposed to the media in noon

VI. RESULTS
time had the lowest media literacy with a moderate score of
A. Analysis of general information of the respondents 3.29, which was close to 3.30 score of the previous ranking,
The analysis showed that the majority of the samples were the male samples who exposed to the media at night. The
female (59.3%) aged between 15 and 17 (86.0%) who were male samples who exposed to the media in the evening and
studying in high school (66.3%). Most had personal income of the female samples who exposed to the media at noon and in
not more than THB 5,000 (46.8%) per month and family the evening had high media literacy score of 3.56, 3.51 and
income of more than THB 50,000 (37.5%), and lived with 3.65 respectively.
their parents (82.5%). The standard deviation of all 8 sample groups was close.
The female group who exposed to the media in the morning
B. Analysis of media exposure behavior had highest of 0.70, which was close to 0.69 of the male
The analysis showed that most of the samples exposed to samples who exposed to the media in the morning. The
media everyday (54.0%), followed by often (5-6 times/week) resulting p-value of Levene's test was 0.080 which means the
and sometimes (3-4 times/week) (26.0 % and 17.8% hypothesis was not rejected. In other words, the variances of
respectively). The daily period of exposure was 1-3 hours the 8 population groups were not significantly different.
(47.3%), followed by over 3 hours but not over 6 hours, and Therefore, the pairwise comparison of average (Bonferroni)
over 6 hours (25.8% and 11.8% respectively). In addition, it after variance test required statistical data of the population
was found that the highest level of media exposure took place groups that have no significant variance as shown in Table I.
in the evening (50.8%), followed by night and noon (355% 2. Two-way ANOVA for media literacy of early teenagers
and 7.3% respectively). The Top 3 media with the highest The two-way ANOVA was utilized to study the interaction
exposure was television, internet and radio (47.0%, 44.9% and influence and core influence of gender (male/female) and
4.8% respectively). timing of media exposure, i.e. morning, noon, evening and
night time on the media literacy of early teenagers. It was
C. Analysis of media literacy of early teenagers found that gender (male/female) and timing of media
The analysis indicated that the samples overall had high exposure, i.e. morning, noon, evening and night time had
media literacy (xØ =3.59). For each separate issue, the issue
interaction influence on the media literacy of early teenagers
with highest media literacy was that nice pictures in the media
with statistical significance at the level of 0.05 as shown in
are usually improved by retouching techniques and are not real
Table II. Taking into account the averages of all 8 population
pictures (xØ =3.74), followed by rather high media literacy on
the issue that there is always advertisement hidden on various groups, the early teen females who exposed to the media in
media, and that advertising images on the media are created noon, evening and night time had higher media literacy than
for the purpose of product sales (xØ =3.68 and 3.61 the early teen males, except for media exposure in the morning
respectively) when the early teen males had significantly higher media
literacy than the teen females as shown in Figure I. Therefore,
D. Factors affecting media literacy of early teenagers the analysis was in line with the descriptive statistics in 1.
1. Analysis of statistical data explaining media literacy of
early teenagers and timing of media exposure.
TABLE I
Descriptive Statistics for Media Literacy of Early Teenagers and Timing of Media Exposure
Mean Std. Deviation N
Timing of media exposure Gender Gender Gender
Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total
Morning 3.93 3.75 3.83 0.69 0.70 0.69 12 14 26
Noon 3.29 3.51 3.38 0.62 0.61 0.61 17 12 29
Evening 3.56 3.65 3.62 0.63 0.54 0.58 73 130 203
Night 3.30 3.74 3.55 0.40 0.51 0.52 61 81 142
Total 3.46 3.68 3.59 0.58 0.55 0.57 163 237 400
Remark: /HYHQH¶VWHVWRIHTXDOLW\RIHUURUYDULDQFHV) df=7,392; P=0.080
TABLE II
Two-way ANOVA of Media Literacy of Early Teenagers
Variance SS df MS F P
Gender (Male/Female) 0.934 1 0.934 3.064 0.081

Timing of media exposure (Morning/Noon/Evening/Night) 3.310 3 1.103 3.620 0.013
Interaction 3.497 3 1.166 3.825 0.010*
Residual variance 119.455 392 0.305
*p<0.05
The Early Teenagers' Media Literacy

4.0
3.8
3.6
Gender
3.4
Male
3.2 Female
Morning Noon Evening Night
Period of Being Exposed to The Media
Fig. 1 Disordinal Interaction between Gender and Timing of Media Exposure Affecting Media Literacy of Early Teenagers
VII. DISCUSSION (1973)¶V FRQFHSW RI GHPRJUDSKLF FKDUDFWHULVWLFV which states

1) The data analysis indicated that the samples had high that people of different gender have different perception,
media literacy. This may be because teenagers nowadays have experience, expression of opinion, attitude, value and
extensive opportunities to learn and gain media experience behavior. Such difference may affect the recipient¶V media
from their exposure to political, economic, social and cultural literacy. The result of the study was supported by Livingstone
information. Most importantly, teenagers are exposed to DQG WHDP ¶V FRQFHSW which says that gender, on media
various types of media particularly modern day teens who can access basis, is significantly correlated with media literacy. It
easily gain access to the media such as newspaper, radio, is also found in this research that television was the type of
television, movie and internet. These teenagers have good user media with the highest exposure among early teenagers.
skills for various media. They can enhance their social According to the study of Mosuwan (2008), teen females had
competence by communicating and developing content to higher media exposure than teen males. It is likely that the
create social relationship through channels such as Facebook, consequential receipt of more information has effects on their
blog, etc. Lastly, Thai teenagers are now in the context where media literacy.
media literacy has been encouraged by the government and
other agencies, for example, the Child Media Institute under
Thai Health Promotion Foundation ZKLFKSURPRWHGFKLOGUHQ¶V VIII. RECCOMMENDATION
media literacy by organizing the activity to develop the
³3XEOLF 3URSRVDO RQ &KLOGUHQ¶V 0HGLD /LWHUDF\´ 7eenagers With the result of this research showing that there is an
therefore gain knowledge and broaden their vision. They can interaction between timing of media exposure and media
understand a deeper aspect of media content as well as the literacy, related agencies, both of the public and private
hidden objectives and are not easily convinced. This is sectors, are recommended to set a suitable timing to publicize
supported by the studies of Celot & Perez Tornero (2009) and media literacy content in order to ensure efficiency and
Makesritongkum 2012) in which two dimensions of media success for the cultivation of media literacy among early
literacy were identified in the structure of media literacy teenagers.
assessment criteria: environmental factors, i.e. media
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World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology

Factors Affecting Media Literacy of

T HE advancements of communication technologies and

Khajornjit Bunnag is with School of Communication Arts, Bangkok

V. METHODOLOGY According to the analysis of statistical data explaining

second. The male samples who exposed to the media in noon

Gender (Male/Female) 0.934 1 0.934 3.064 0.081

The Early Teenagers' Media Literacy

Period of Being Exposed to The Media

VII. DISCUSSION (1973)¶V FRQFHSW RI GHPRJUDSKLF FKDUDFWHULVWLFV which states

[13] Makesritongkum, B. Media Literracy: Keeping Pace with Information

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