فصلنامه رسانه
سال بیست و پنجم شماره 4 (پیاپی 97، زمستان 1393)

The Document on Fundamental Reforms in Education has explained the prospects and objectives of education in the 2025 Vision, inspired by the upstream documents and attention to strategic prospects and objectives of the Islamic Republic of Iran. One of the dimensions paid attention to in this document is the role of media in education. In fact, the media beside education, family and non-government institutions are considered the fourth pillar in the official and public theoretical bases of fundamental reforms in education of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Since the capabilities and potentials of media provide opportunities and threats for education, this paper after extracting and reviewing paragraphs related to the media, has categorized them and examined the necessity of teaching media literacy to achieve the high objectives of the fundamental reform document. In other words, this documentation study has indicated that achievement of the objectives of the document on fundamental reforms in education in the field of media depends on formulation of a coherent plan for teaching media literacy at various school levels.

A number of media pundits believe that satellite TV networks are the most popular media with considerable effect on the formation of people’s personalities. As children approach adolescence, importance of the media role and their effects on young adults grows and parents’ concern regarding the effects of satellite TV on their adolescent children seems to intensify and they step up their supervision over their adolescents’ satellite TV usage. With respect to the growing importance of the role mothers play in bringing up children, they also seem to play a stronger role in supervision over their children’s satellite TV usage. Mothers’ roles in relation to children and media can be classified within various educational patterns and their supervision over their young adults’ satellite TV usage can be put in a spectrum from elimination of usage to absence of supervision. The researcher is after finding answers to the following two questions: a) What strategies do mothers use to control their adolescent children’s satellite TV use? b) How mothers’ media literacy can affect these supervising methods? To find answers to these questions, in-depth interviews were conducted with 30 mothers who have adolescent children and the effect of media literacy on mothers’ control mechanisms regarding satellite TV usage of their adolescent children were reviewed and categorized. The findings of the research indicate that developing mothers’ media literacy is the most important factor in choosing the strategy for controlling satellite TV usage of adolescents. Absence of mothers’ media literacy leaves unsuitable effects on mechanisms of controlling their adolescents’ usage of media.

Taking into consideration the trend of developments in the world and transition from the information society era to a knowledge-based society era, strengthening of media literacy of the audience is among prerequisites of achievement of a knowledge-based society.The knowledge-based society calls for an everlasting educational program for the citizens. Facilitating all citizen's access to the needed education, investment in production and propagation of knowledge and increase in media literacy level of the society is a determining strategy for moving in on the path of development based on knowledge. An everlasting educational program in a knowledge-based society means understanding adults’ learning mechanisms has gained importance and that facilitating and promoting education during life should be thought about. Education from traditional point of view used to be defined as ‘acquiring knowledge'. Today, the definition of the term has evolved to mean 'acquiring necessary skills to be able to function as a member of the society, to produce knowledge and to develop cognitive abilities'. Accordingly, education is a major process in a knowledge-based society. Information technology has provided new tools and equipment to facilitate education. In order to understand new opportunities, we need to study new educational patterns and technical plans to provide for the education. The term 'learning societie's indicates a new type of society in which the time- and place- related limitations of the past in acquiring education no longer apply. One of the responsibilities of a learning society is to rethink and re-evaluate itself in the light of discoveries, social actions hidden in production and transfer of knowledge, education, public propagation of knowledge, or in other words, the educational role of media and promotion of media literacy level of users in learning societies. By using survey methodology, this paper has reviewed the importance of employing potentials and functions of media in promotion of media literacy to achieve knowledge-based society.

Human development indicator is a composite indicator which measures three major aspects of life: having access to enough facilities to gain knowledge, having a long and healthy life, and reaching a standard level in life. This indicator, which is published annually by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), has been modified by the lapse of time and used as an acceptable international indicator to assess development of various societies. Human development approach considers consumption of goods and services as only one of the factors of a better life and regards meeting spiritual needs and strengthening of intellectual capacities as another factor of a better life, which is obtained through training mental abilities and potentials especially through education. Today, being literate is no longer confined within the limits of being able to read and write; but it is referred to those who have the ability to use new communication technologies and make a wise choice among the many messages existing in the message market. Accordingly, this research aims to examine the role of media literacy in human development in the Islamic Republic with regards to the policies of the two organizations of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) and the Ministry of Education and analyze the relationship between these policies and human development. This study has used documentation and analytical research methods. The findings of this study show how limited the policies of these two institutions have been in media literacy field and that they lack a process outlook towards media literacy education. Moreover, review of the executive policies of the IRIB indicates that there is no development-oriented outlook towards media literacy in these policies.

Reporters are producers and publishers of news stories in a broad dimension and maybe in various corners of the world. Reporters produce and put on line thousands of news stories as they like, while taking into consideration the interests of their owners. Under such competitive circumstances, the amount and quality of stories can both attract more audience and establish the realities. Promotion of media literacy of reporters and editors -- as the main body of news production – not only can prevent their passiveness but also make them guide the news flow. This paper deals with review of media literacy of editors and reporters and their role in promoting the quality of news products. Information gained from 50 editors and reporters of one of the provincial centres of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) indicates 34 percent have media literacy level of average, 30 percent little and 16 percent very high. There is a meaningful relationship between media literacy and news production. In other words, the higher the media literacy level the higher the quality of news stories production will be.

Media literacy is one of the appealing subjects in communication field. Through increasing the audience knowledge, media literacy makes it possible for us to build cognitive and critical frameworks and have a critical view towards the media and the stories published by them. Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media so that they can interpret the meaning of messages they cope with. On this basis, media literacy includes an expository and preferential system affected by mental and ethical judgment, which formulates an individual’s encounter with media messages and causes the audience feel more responsibility when using and choosing messages. In this article, the researcher has been after identifying the media literacy level of the audience versus the life style presented by Persian language satellite networks “Manoto” and “Gem TV”. The research has been conducted in District 20 of Tehran in the Iranian year 1393 (March 21, 2014-March 20, 2015). The statistical population is 319,305 persons from among whom 384 people have been chosen as sample based on the Cochran formula. The research has used descriptive survey method as well as documentation and library and quantitative methods. Simple random sampling method has been used in this research. The necessary information was gained through questionnaire and interview, which consisted questions related to independent and dependent variables. The information acquired through descriptive and inferential statistics were analyzed by SPSS software. At the end, out of the four hypotheses suggested, the first one dealing with the media literacy level with an approach to components of critical thinking and soft war; the second, third and fourth hypotheses on media literacy with variables of body management, consumerism and leisure time had meaningful relationships and were confirmed.

Undoubtedly, the significant role of the media in the formation of civic society cannot be overlooked. Indeed, the prerequisite of a civic society is active and well-informed citizens. In a world that the audience is bombarded from every direction by media messages, the necessity of paying attention to media literacy and its importance is inevitable. Therefore, the main question in this article is whether media literacy can affect formation and growth of civic society. By conducting documentation and library research, characteristics of a civic society and the components of media literacy were reviewed. It was clarified that promotion of citizen’s media literacy is one of the requirements of realization of a civic society so that the media can fulfil their optimal function in this line and the awareness of citizens would go up. This paper shows how escalation of media literacy can influence the media role in the society and help achieve civic society. It also lays emphasis on the fact that escalation of media literacy is a prerequisite of materialization of civic society.