Developing Appropriate Media Literacy Skills for Sustainable Rural Community Development
Keywords:
Media, Media Literacy, Media literacy skills, Sustainable rural community, DevelopmentAbstract
The study examined ways of developing appropriate media literacy skills for sustainable rural community development. Three research questions guided the study. The study anchored on uses and gratifications theory and adopted survey research design. The population of the study is 38 and census sampling technique was adopted. The instrument for data collection was a self-questionnaire which was validated by experts via face and content validity method and used for data gathering. The reliability of the instrument was established at 0.76 using the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Co-efficient (PPMC). The study found amongst others that the ways media literacy skills can be developed includes inculcating in media users’ skills that will enable them to critically analyze and evaluate media content, make informed decisions, identify bias and misinformation and incorporate media literacy into school curriculum. The study concluded that if well-established media education curriculum as currently exist in developed countries such as United Kingdom, America, Canada etc are replicated in Nigeria education system, it will go a long way to promote media literacy and hence facilitate the process of rural community development in many areas. The study recommended amongst others that educational planners should as a matter of urgency introduce media literacy education as an obligatory curriculum in the school system from primary to tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
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