Current research on media education:From school children to senior citizens

Päivi RasiPhD (Education), University Lecturer in Media Education University of Lapland, Faculty of Education, Centre for Media Pedagogy

Milan | October 22nd, 2015, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

What do we need to rethink?The participation of senior citizens in Media Education

Media Education practices •Awareness rising activities •Training, instruction, support

Research on Media Education •Research methodologies: how can we acquire knowledge about the media education needs and preferences of senior citizens?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/prupert/

68375339/

Does everyone has to use the

Internet?

What do we need to rethink?

The scientic disciplines which provide insights to us:•Media and Cultural Studies, Communication•Educational sciences: Adult Education, Media Education•Educational Gerontology, Gerontology

Journal examples: New Media & Society, Educational Gerontology, Computers in Human Behavior, Comunicar – Media Education Research Journal

What do we know about older people’s internet use and digital competences?• Compared to younger people, older people:

– use the Internet less, especially in rural areas. – use the Internet in a less mobile way, i.e. with tablets,

smartphones, laptops outside their homes.– have not embraced social media as enthusiastically.– are not playing digital games as much.

• More Internet non-users among older people.

(e.g. Dennis, 2004; Livingstone, Van Couvering, & Thumim, 2005; Ofcom, 2006; Tisdell, Stuckey, & Thompson, 2007; Quinn, 2014; Official Statistics of Finland, 2015; Vroman, Arthanat, & Lysack, 2015; Hakkarainen, 2012; Rasi & O’Neil, 2015).

Older people have lower levels of media literacy / digital competence as compared to adults:

•critical evaluation of the point of view from which information is presented•of the three aspects of media literacy (i.e., access, understanding, and creation), creation has been the most under-researched•breadth of Internet use far from the maximum potential•less competent in digital tasks, e.g, blocking computer viruses, listening to the radio over the Internet)•less interested in learning more about Internet and its use

(e.g. Dennis, 2004; Livingstone, Van Couvering, & Thumim, 2005; Ofcom, 2006; Tisdell, Stuckey, & Thompson, 2007; Quinn, 2014; Official Statistics of Finland, 2015; Vroman, Arthanat, & Lysack, 2015).

Digital competence(Ferrari, 2013)

• Information: Identify, locate, retrieve, store, organise and analyse digital information, judging its relevance and purpose.

• Communication: Communicate in digital environments, share resources through online tools, link with others and collaborate through digital tools, interact with and participate in communities and networks, cross-cultural awareness.

• Content-creation: Create and edit new content from word processing to images and video, integrate and re-elaborate previous knowledge and content, produce creative expressions, media outputs and programming, deal with and apply intellectual property rights and licences.

• Safety: Personal protection, data protection, digital identity protection, security measures, safe and sustainable use.

• Problem-solving: Identify digital needs and resources, make informed decisions on most appropriate digital tools according to the purpose and need, solve conceptual problems through digital means, creatively use technologies, solve technical problems, update own and others’ competence.

How do senior citizens learn digital competences?

• Preferred method of learning is through friends and family – compared to other methods, such as reading instructions, trial and error,

finding out from the supplier/store, attending a class • Key enablers of older people’s media literacy:

– self-efficacy (skills and confidence in using new media technologies)– social support networks– and family composition, especially, having children in the household(Livingstone et al., 2005; Ofcom, 2006; Rasi & Kilpeläinen, in press; Vroman et al. 2015).

Digital competence = distributed competence

• Seeing digital competence only as an individual characteristic provides a limited view

• Distributed competences of elderly dyads (couples living together), families with three generations, and informal networks of villagers.

• Children, grandchildren, or for example villagers do Internet tasks (e.g., searching for recipes and paying bills) for the respondents, helping and support them in their Internet use

(Rasi & Kilpeläinen, in press; see also Livingstone, Van Couvering, & Thumim, 2005; Lipponen, 2007),  

I give my bills to my daughter [name omitted], [and] she pays them. I don’t even have the machine. Yes, they [her children] would have bought a computer for me, but I said I won’t take it. I don’t want to learn how to use it. (Female, 86 years, Interview 1) I don’t use the computer at all. [...] Not in any way, I don’t even open it. I have such a great secretary [refers to her husband] that I don’t need to. (Female, 69 years, Interview 2) I manage very well [without the Internet] because my daughter uses it. [...] She does everything for me. (Female, 78 years, Interview 3)

A case study in rural villages in Finnish Lapland (Rasi & Kilpeläinen, in press)

Conclusions from current research: Person-centered, need-based instructional models

– Avoid making generalizations:• What we know about younger age groups to senior citizens • What we know about senior citizens Diversity among older people!

– First make sure that the language of technology is understood– Instruction should be personally relevant, meaningful for the participants, need-based ”demanding customers”– Emotions, motivation, priorities, preferences, conceptions, values, needs, prior knowledge, even lifestyles need to be

taken into account– “One size fits all’’ training is unlikely to work – A problem-based approach seems to work (e.g, Xie et al. ,2012; Hyvönen et al., 2012; Rasi & Kilpeläinen, in press; Vroman et al. 2015; Hakkarainen, 2012; González et al., 2015;

Harrington et al. 2014).

Figure source: Vroman et al. 2015, p. 165

Thank You for Your Attention!

Centre for Media Pedagogy (CMP)http://www.ulapland.fi/CMP

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