Abstract:

An essential component of modern human capacity to act is media literacy, which ensures quality participation in culture, belonging to various Internet communities and groups, the ability to express oneself in multimodal ways, collaborate in teams, co-working environments, as well as change the media environment, creating one’s own media channels, messages. Media literacy is the result of quality media education that begins in the family, at school and continues as lifelong learning. According to the Media Literacy Index of 2021, Latvia ranks only 20th out of 35 countries analysed in the index. This is one of the signals that confirms the need to significantly strengthen media education in Latvia in both formal and non-formal education.

The standards of Latvian primary education and general secondary education do not include the results to be achieved in media literacy, some elements and topics of media literacy are integrated only in the digital transversal and Latvian language curriculum. This situation poses a risk to the quality of media education in Latvia, leaving the choice of media education to the teachers themselves. If teachers do not fully understand media literacy, do not treat it as an important component of students’ capacity to act, there is a risk that important aspects of media literacy will not be included in the educational process or will be included in a fragmentary, incomplete, insufficient way.

The aim of the research is to evaluate teachers’ views on media literacy as a component of capacity to act and, based on the analysis of the obtained data, to develop recommendations for further education of teachers in media education.

Within the framework of the research, a survey was developed to find out the opinion of teachers about media literacy as a component of capacity to act for exploration. 300 Latvian teachers participated in the survey. The survey includes a general part and three question modules. The first module of the survey clarified teachers’ self-assessment about searching for and using information, critical evaluation of media messages, implementing media education in pedagogical practice, content creation and communication. The second module of the survey clarified the teachers’ views on the topicality and significance of the above-mentioned criteria in education. The third module of questions consists of various statements about media education, media literacy, further education of teachers, finding out to what extent teachers agree or disagree with these statements. The obtained quantitative data were analysed using the SPSS program.

The study revealed that, taking into account the views of teachers on media literacy as a component of capacity to act, Latvian teachers can be divided into 2 clusters - constructivists (68.9%) and pragmatists (31.1%). The article will describe and analyse the views of each defined cluster in more detail, as well as provide recommendations for further education of teachers based on the represented cluster

Keywords:

Teacher beliefs, media literacy, media education, agency.