Abstract:

Consumer socialisation agents of parents, peers, media, and school enable a child to co-construct knowledge, and they condition behaviour. The traditional roles of socialisation agents have evolved and there is concern that media have replaced parents as the primary consumer socialisation agent for children. Furthermore, children have more frequent communications with each other, and increasingly exert ‘peer pressure’ over the choice of brands consumed. Historically, commercial messages were one-way via the medium of a shared television which parents could control to some degree, whereas children are now exposed to a multitude of content across a variety of platforms. If children are not informed of advertisers motivations, they are at risk of being manipulated in a manner which is inappropriate (Nelson et al., 2017). The debate regarding regulation or education that permeated discussions on children’s exposure to media (Hobbs, 2011) is waning. The need for media literacy education for children is evident (Sekarasih et al., 2019; De Pauw et al., 2018; Buckingham, 2007).

Since the turn of the century revisions in primary curriculum in Ireland have sought to integrate media education in a formal manner (O’Neill, 2000). Media education forms one unit of the current primary curriculum for Wellbeing. The Stay Safe programme is a compulsory programme all pupils undertake as part of the Wellbeing curriculum, its learning outcomes map to the media education unit. The substantive focus of the Stay Safe programme is on safe practices when using the internet and social media. A crowded curriculum renders it challenging for teachers to spend additional time on media literacy education in the classroom. Consequently, for the most part, media literacy education is singular in its form, the theme of online safety dominates. While this is an essential form of media literacy, multiple media literacies, including advertising literacies are indispensable. ‘Education about the media should be seen as an indispensable prerequisite for education with or through the media’ (Buckingham, 2015, p21).

In late 2017, The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (Safefood 2017) launched ‘MediaWise’, a free, eight lesson, media education teaching resource, available online. The learning outcomes of the MediaWise intervention promote logical and affective assessment of marketing messages, and map directly to the learning outcomes of the media education unit of the Wellbeing curriculum. This paper reports perspectives on novel media literacy education in the classroom; qualitative discussions held with five teachers who delivered MediaWise lessons in class, and 17 pupils who received the lessons.

Teachers discussed their experiences in delivering the media literacy intervention as additional curriculum, and reflected on the benefits of including media literacy in contemporary curriculum. Children’s discussed their perceptions of the content of the lessons, moreover, their thoughts on the purpose of advertising, and their attitudes towards consumption were explored. A thematic analysis approach (Braun and Clarke, 2006) was adopted to analyse the data. The findings indicate that both parties regarded the intervention as a positive addition to curriculum and communicated that they would like to see more media literacy lessons in the classroom. Specific recommendations regarding the format and content of media literacy teaching materials were proposed.

Keywords:

Media literacy education, children, primary curriculum, advertising literacy.