TOWARD MEDIA LITERACY PARENT EDUCATION: IDENTIFYING CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDIA USE AS PROXIMAL PROCESSES THROUGH THE PERSPECTIVES OF MOTHERS OF ADOLESCENTS IN CURRENT MEDIA DOMINANT BIOECOLOGICAL STRUCTURES

Media literacy education has yet to adequately address the needs of parents as media literacy learners. Yet, a lack of understanding about media literacy’s meaning, for most people outside of the community of scholars and advocates engaged in its discourse, renders no clear pathway toward rectifying the omission. This study situates media, rather than media literacy, as the introductory topic, while seeking a conceptual gateway for parents as media literacy learners through insights gathered from mothers of adolescents on matters of quality, role, and impact within their home environments. Utilizing Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory of human development as a conceptual foundation, media use was framed here as a proximal process. Through exploratory mixed methods research design, data were collected from a quantitative questionnaire (n=363) and qualitative, semi-structured interviews (n=13) about three proximal process variations: (1) mother and adolescent engaged in joint media use, (2) the mother’s solitary media use, and (3) media use of their adolescent child(ren) when alone.
Quantitative results show that mothers evaluate the quality of media use in their home environments as more favorable than not for each proximal process. However, there was significant disagreement among the mothers regarding media use of their adolescent(s), when alone. Disagreement on this item guided identification of participants for the qualitative interviews.