Media Literacy Programmes Media Smart Since 2002, industry has funded and supported Media Smart, a non-profit media literacy programme for school children aged 6 to 11, currently running in Belgium, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK, and being developed in Hungary, Italy and Portugal. Media Smart develops and provides, free of charge, educational materials to primary schools that teach children to think critically about advertising in the context of their daily lives, and food and beverage advertising in particular. It is the only programme in Europe to bring together industry, academics, parents, teachers and governments. It uses television broadcasts and in-class teaching materials to reach children, parents and teachers. Endorsed by the UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the Dutch Health Ministry and the European Commission, Media Smart has taught more than one million schoolchildren to date – a rollout which is to be repeated in several more countries in the near future. A recent piece of independent evaluation research conducted by the UK-based Institute of Education, shows that: - Media Smart materials are effective at teaching children about advertising.
- Nearly 91% of teachers thought the materials were excellent or good at successfully engaging students and nearly 88% of teachers found the materials well-designed and easy to use. A total of 85% of teachers rated the activities as excellent or good and over 83% of teachers found the materials excellent or very successful at teaching the language of advertising.
- An overwhelming majority of teachers preferred to teach advertising literacy with commercial advertising examples, as opposed to the non-commercial materials also provided.
- Children do have a considerable understanding of advertising but until now have had little opportunity to discuss the things that they do not understand with teachers.
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