A Comparative Study of Media Literacy in Students: The case of male and female students of the last year of high school in Kerman city

Media literacy, as the new kind of literacy in the 21st century, involves a person’s ability in accessing, analyzing, assessing, and communicating with media messages in different forms, as well as his or her ability in critical thinking. The fundamental question of this study was studying high school students’ media literacy and its relationship with their sex, high school major and socio-economic status. This study was carried out using a survey method and a questionnaire, and the sample consisted of 400 students chosen through multilevel cluster sampling in Kerman high schools. Data was collected to address two questions and five hypotheses of the study. Findings revealed that level of media literacy was higher in male high school students, and that there was a significant relationship between level of media literacy and the three variables (sex, major, and socio-economic status). The study also showed that media literacy in students of last year of high school, who are human outputs of Ministry of Education average, was average in general.