1. Measuring Media Literacy
Among Collegiate Journalism Students
An exercise in patience & perseverance
By Jory Burson
Image from pbs.org

2. The Inspiration:
Five semesters of grading papers for JB
1143 Media & Society

3. The Definition:
“…the ability of a citizen to access, analyze, and
produce information for specific outcomes.”
- The Aspen Institute National Leadership Conference on Media Literacy
“A media literate person – and everyone should
have the opportunity to become one – can
decode, evaluate, analyze, and produce both
print and electronic media.”
- Aufderheide (2001, pg. 79)

4. The Questions:
1) What is the media literacy knowledge level of
collegiate journalism students?
2) How does the media literacy knowledge level
of journalism students compare to that of non-
journalism students?

5. The Hypothesis:
Journalism majors will score higher than non-
journalism majors on a media literacy survey.

6. The Justification:
1) Journalism students should have a thorough
understanding of the media industry upon
graduation.
2) Effective media literacy education for
journalists can impact our democracy.
3) This study could help guide future efforts to
provide media literacy education for journalism
students.

7. The Theory:
•Potter’s Cognitive Theory of Media Literacy (2004)
•Defines the process of becoming media literate in three
parts:
•Knowledge structures must be developed.
•Continually develop knowledge structures and applying
critical thinking toward media messages.
•Media literacy must have a purpose.
•Social Construction Theory
(Berger & Luckmann, 1966)

8. The Methodology:
From the literature review, seven primary criterion
of a media literate individual were identified:
1) Awareness of media’s impact on the
individual and society
2) Understanding the media system & how it
works
3) Information processing and critical
thinking

9. The Methodology, continued:
4) Awareness of media’s social
constructionist role
5) Increased enjoyment or appreciation of
media content
6) Knowledge of media’s role within the First
Amendment
7) Continual development as mental
maturity increases

10. The Methodology, continued:
To test those criterion, a media literacy survey
was developed based on research by Potter
(1998) and Thayer (2007).
The researcher surveyed for all the criterions
except #7, continual development.

11. The Methodology, continued:
The researcher used e-mail and direct classroom
recruitment for the sampling method.
- e-mails sent via departmental listservs + visits to
selected, consenting classrooms
Surveymonkey.com used to host the survey for e-
mail responses.
Codebook developed by the researcher to input
paper-survey responses into SPSS.

12. The Survey:
•53 total test items
•Combination of multiple choice, yes-no, scale,
and open-ended questions.
•Questions about prior knowledge of media
literacy:
•“How many courses have you had which have
discussed media literacy?”
•“Define media literacy to the best of your ability.”

13. The Survey, continued:
•Questions about media usage & engagement:
•“How many hours do you spend consuming media
per day?”
•“Have you ever written a letter to the editor of a
newspaper?”

14. The Survey, continued:
•Questions to test the criterion of a media literate
individual included:
•“Which government agency monitors broadcasters?”
•“I know more about the media than other students
because of my major.”
•“ I often find out about social trends through the
media.”
•“Which of the following camera shots conveys the
most emotional drama?”

15. The Demographics:
•291 respondents to the survey
•125 majors in the Journalism & Broadcasting
department, 166 majors from other departments.
•45.4% male, 54% female, .6% no response
•44.3% Freshmen, 22% Sophomore, 18.6%
Juniors, 14.8% Seniors, .3% no response

16. The Demographics, continued:
Of the 125 Journalism & Broadcasting dept.
majors,
* 18.5% News/Editorial
* 14.5% Broadcasting
* 41.9% Public Relations
* 8.9% Advertising
* 16.1% Sports Media
*.8% No Response

17. The Statistical Tests:
•Independent Samples T-Tests to compare the
Journalism majors with the non-journalism
majors.
•One-Way ANOVA to compare scores between
Journalism majors based on their degree
sequence.
•Cronbach’s Alpha to establish the reliability of
the scale.

18. The Results:
Reliability Analysis removed the test items
designed to test the criterion Media’s Impact,
which left five criterion to analyze.
Journalism majors reported taking more courses
(2-3 courses) that discussed media literacy than
non-journalism majors (0-1 courses).

19. The Results, continued:
Journalism majors reported spending more time
per day and per week consuming media than
non-journalism majors.
Journalism majors reported using multiple media
sources at a time more often than non-journalism
majors.
Journalism majors reported engaging more with
media sources than non-journalism majors.

20. The Results, continued:
On the knowledge portion of the survey,
Journalism majors (M=6.25) had more correct
responses than non-journalism majors (M=3.33).
This result was statistically significant.
- These results supported the Hypothesis

21. The Results, continued:
{HOWEVER}
The survey’s range was 0-14, meaning that
while journalism majors scored better than non-
journalism majors, they still scored less than half
the points available.

22. The Results, continued:
On the knowledge portion of the survey,
News/editorial majors scored the highest (M=7.74);
This was significantly different from one other major – Public
Relations (M=5.54).
On the remaining criterion,
Journalism majors scored significantly higher than non-
journalism students on all criterion except Information
Processing

23. The Limitations:
•44.3% of the respondents were Freshmen, thus
not as far along in their media education.
•Advertising and Sports Media majors appeared
to share more similarities with non-journalism
majors.
•The scale for this study suffered from reliability
issues, which eliminated one criterion and some
key questions designed to measure variables for
others.

24. The Future?
•Research to understand the relationship
between media consumption and engagement
levels?
•Research to understand if journalism majors use
media for a different social construction role than
non-journalism majors?
•Similar research to examine other media-related
majors, such as film studies?

25. The END.