Assessing Media Literacy between university and pre-university Student of Tehran

Regarding the media literacy, this article examines the question of how aware the university and high school students in Tehran are. Using the theories of James Potter, political economy, social responsibility and education information, this study seeks to answer the above question regarding the media literacy of Tehrani students. We will also explain the degree of media literacy using variables such as age, sex, and level of education and the use of television. Methodologically, it is a survey research based on 440 samples from university students as well as 400 samples from high school students. Some of the findings indicate that university and school students in Tehran demonstrate some weak levels of cognition of the media literacy. Because of such weak dimension, the students are not able to make conscious choices between various media and they can not take independent action. Such phenomenon causes them to be in need of retraining measures that can help them take critical approach towards media choices and media consumption. We believe the retraining will equip them with the tools to analyze and evaluate media products. Some other findings indicate that the perception of sample group towards media literacy can be identified. For example, the school students considered the definition of media literacy as equivalent to traditional literacy, while university students found it as the training that makes an individual to be able to understand the media interaction process. The students also considered it as a process that can improve their ability to make sense of the media. Also, the perception of school students about media literacy relied on what they considered to be an understanding of the current situation of the media, rather than considering it as tool that improved their critical and independent thinking. This is while the university students stated that the main purposes of media literacy include critical and independent thinking, ability to choose and ambition to achieve a leading position. It should also be mentioned that the findings indicate that there has been a meaningful correlation between the age and media literacy of school and university students. The relation between age and gender of the university students with media literacy revealed that the boys have more media literacy compared to the girls. The relation between age and gender among school students were indifferent for the both genders. There was also a meaningful correlation between education level of university students and level of media literacy while such a correlation did not exist among school students.