Teleliteracy What should Children be Taught About TV?

Abstract

Children are growing up in media-dominated culture, television (TV) being the most pervasive (Thoman & Jolls, 2002). This study gave attention to the subject of 'teleliteracy'. This term was coined by Bianculli (1992) to refer to the ability to develop skills to question, analyse and evaluate TV messages. Teleliteracy, refers to TV literacy. While teleliteracy is regarded as necessary in the developed world, the situation is different in the Kenyan scene. Media literacy is not a priority and has never been provided for in the school curriculum (Kenya Institute of Education, (KIE), 2000). The purpose of this study was to assess the teleliteracy needs and levels of children in Upper Primary in three purposively selected schools. The information gathered would determine the content to be contained in a teleliteracy curriculum for this level. A total of 215 children filled in the questionnaire. At the time of the study these children were in classes six, seven and eight in the Kenyan primary 8-4-4 system education. On average, the sampled children were aged between 9 and 13 plus years. Generally the findings indicated that about 94.5% of the sampled children had access to TV. Children also regarded TV as a teacher with 82.9% and 80.4% indicating that TV taught both 'good' and 'bad' behaviour respectively. A significant 71.9% of the sampled children confessed that they had learnt some matters on sex from the medium. About 85.4% also thought that some programmes taught viewers how to organise and execute crime. Regarding the effects of TV on schoolwork, 85.4% agreed that too much TV could affect their school performance. A considerable 59.8% indeed confessed that they sometimes watched too much TV and forgot to complete their homework. The study findings also indicated that children supported a form of teleliteracy. About 68.8% indicate that they should be taught to interpret TV messages; another 69.9% said that they should be taught to choose appropriate TV programmes; about 74.4% said that they should be helped to develop good TV habits; and a moderately high of 80.4% said that they should 140 Abstracts be taught to recognise the effects of TV in their own lives. The study recommends the introduction of some form of teleliteracy among the children.