Critical Analysis of Advertising Media Texts as a Way of the Development of Media Literacy of Adolescents

Abstract

Today it is extremely important to prepare citizens especially the new generation for the perception of diverse information to teach them how to conceive the media information and to understand the effects of media influence on the psyche as well. Every child must acquire the mechanism of critical perception of the information, the ability to interpret, analyze and evaluate the media texts, to understand their essence, purpose, and reveal the hidden meaning and attempts for the mind manipulation. While educational institutions in Western countries (USA, GB, France, Australia, Canada, etc.) introduced educational subjects aimed at forming the basics of media literacy in the 1960’s and the 20 century, this work really started only within the last years in Ukraine.The theoretical aspects of the use of advertising as a way for developing the media literacy of adolescents are considered in the paper. A model for the development of media literacy through a critical analysis of media texts is proposed. The model consists of three stages: ad analysis, ad evaluation, creating for personal ad product. The model implies for developing the appropriate skills of critical thinking for each of the above mentioned stages. The author has carried out the pedagogical experiment for the purpose to approbate the model. 147 students (age is 12-17 years old) have taken a part in the experiment. The experimental group consists of 79 teenagers while the control group consists of 68 teenagers. The experimental group of approaches for the critical ad analysis was organized. As result of the experiment, teenagers have learnt how to define the ad language, how to analyze the ad influence on crowd, how to state the conclusions with regard to their own opinion of ad, how to make the examples with regard to the thinking manipulations by ad messages. The diagnostic cuts conducted again after the implementation of the proposed model of media literacy development, has demonstrated the following results: 65.8% of students with a developed level of cognitive component of media literacy were recorded in Experimental Group, which is 50.6% higher in comparison with data at the beginning of the experiment. This indicator has been increased by only 17.6% in Control Group. 29.1% of the students in Control Group with an average level were recorded. At the basic level of the formation of a critical understanding of the advertising media text after the experiment left 5.1% of adolescents of Experimental Group and 16.2% of adolescents of Control Group. The obtained results can be used in implementing the media education in other educational institutions.

Keywords: media literacy, media education, critical analysis, advertising.