Publication
Title
Adolescents' new media literacy in Flanders(Belgium)
Author
Abstract
Teenagers are often described as digital natives having an open orientation, a strong belief in equality and a desire to be judged based on their contributions. However, the cracks in this story are apparent. Several authors argue that teenagers strongly differ in their skills and critical attitude to benefit fully and safely from the Internets expressive potential. This paper presents the results of a large scale survey based on a sample of 1725 Flemish teenagers representative for gender, education type and grade, questioning adolescents adoption of and attendance to media technologies. The findings emphasize the role of context in understanding differences in (young) peoples media behavior. As almost all youngsters are online, new inequalities seem to emerge between those who have new media at their individual and private disposal, and those with lesser, or at least more limited, opportunities to participate in todays digital media culture. Another finding confirms the success of Social Network Sites (SNS), which is often tied to the eventual participation of a large portion of their user base. We also discern a small but substantial proportion of adolescents publishing personal information on his or her profile page, which raises fundamental questions about adolescents online risk awareness.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Observatorio (OBS*)
Publication
2010
ISSN
1646-5954
Volume/pages
4 :4 (2010) , p. 1-14
Full text (open access)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Publication type
Subject
External links
VABB-SHW
Record
Identifier
Creation 19.12.2011
Last edited 22.08.2023
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