CYP Now - Resources: Know how - Getting to grips with media messages

More than half the nation's under-fives have a television in their bedrooms, according to a survey published this summer. To cope with constant exposure to mass communications from an early age, children need to become media savvy, as PJ White explains. 1. An important part of media literacy is acquiring skills of discernment and judgment. That means developing an active and critical approach to information. Key questions to ask are: who is telling me this, and why?

Top tips for children from Media Smart, the media literacy initiative for UK primary school children, include asking children to say what adverts are selling and to whom, and to try guessing what will happen by the end of the show for their top three TV programmes. Adults could do this too. More ideas, as well as games and quizzes for children, are at www.mediasmart.org.uk

2. Listening to young children is always a great place to start. They can be encouraged to talk about their programme likes and dislikes, and invited to identify the ingredients that appeal to them. This is a good way to check that they can distinguish different genres, and appreciate the difference, say, between fact-based programming and fiction. It can also lead to discussions of bias and stereotyping.

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