Media awareness in the age of new media: a case study of Primary 4 students in Hong Kong

Abstract

This study examined media use and media awareness for Primary 4 students from four schools in Hong Kong (equivalent to Grade 4 in America) and how well their teachers understood their habits of and preferences for media use. The media awareness and media use patterns of students with regard to newspapers, television programmes, radio channels and the Internet were investigated. Results showed that, these students, despite being the new generation of the new media still believed that the news from television, radio and newspapers are more reliable. In addition, they were found to be more proactive media users than their teachers thought. They were more content-oriented in choosing a particular newspaper or TV channel instead of being influenced by their teachers and parents. The teachers were also not able to make very accurate predictions of their students' skills in media evaluation. The findings suggested that more contextual and in-depth approaches are needed to assess the students' media use patterns, from which relevant media education models can be derived.