Abstract:

The project “Media Literacy in Higher Education: an exploratory study within Media Studies students” aims to assess the degree of media literacy of students in the field of Communication Sciences, namely in terms of its ethical challenges. This article presents partial results of the student’s assessment in terms of journalism practices and its code of ethics. 72 students, from the three years of the degree in Media Studies of the School of Education, from the Polytechnic University of Viseu, were asked to evaluate a series of practical cases, with ethical challenges, within the scope of print journalism. The answers show that, within the first year of the course, there are doubts regarding the journalist's behaviour, which do not exist among the other students. The lack of knowledge about the need to distance oneself from the news and the doubts regarding a possible payment to the sources of information are the main doubts of first-year students. However, as they advance in the course, these issues are no longer visible in the answers of the second and third-year students. In the evaluation of practical cases, all the respondents demonstrated a good critical capacity regarding the examples presented. These data are in line with the expected acquisition of skills and knowledge and reflect a profile at the end of the course which shows that students are well prepared from the ethical and behavioural point of view in the field of journalism.

Keywords:

Media literacy, higher education, students, ethical issues in journalism.