Exploring Media Literacy Among Elementary School Pupils

The research study offers an examination of the level of media literacy before the introduction of the media education course and after the acquisition of media competencies a well as the research on the attitudes of students to the course. Based on the results of the research realized, the surveyed schoolboys/schoolgirls without the media education course do have an overview about the basic terms in media. However, they are not able to analyze them sufficiently. They can not differentiate between the public media and commercial media; news content and journalistic content; or determine the correct genre of a broadcast in the system of genre segmentation. Pupils also have incorrect media habits. On the other hand, with those students, who have been taught media education at elementary school since the beginning of the school-year 2010/2011, we have noticed the increased knowledge in media and cultural improvement of media habits. The survey questionnaire proved the improvement of the media literacy in all monitored parameters already after five months since the course application.