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Media Literacy Education Practices
Media Education in the Globalizing World: New Criteria and Priorities
Prof. Dr. Elena G. Popkova, Volgograd State Technical University, Lenin avenue, 28, Volgograd, 400005, [email protected]
Prof. Dr. Natalia G. Vovchenko, Rostov State University of Economics, B. Sadovaya, 69, Rostov, 344002, nat. vovchenko@gmail. com
Prof. Dr. Jeff French, University Business School, Mithras House, Lewes Road, Brighton BN2 4AT, [email protected]
Dr. Anastasia A.Sozinova, Vyatka State University, Kirov, Russia, [email protected]
Dr. Olga G .Lebedinskaya, Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Stremyanny, 36, Moscow, 115093, [email protected]
Dr. Olga Kovaleva, Rostov State University of Economics, B. Sadovaya, 69, Rostov, 344002,
Abstract. The purpose of the article is to determine new criteria and priorities of evaluation of media education in the globalizing world. The methodological basis of the research consists of the developed proprietary methodology of criterial evaluation of media education in the globalizing world in the aspect of its competitiveness and sustainability. The main sources of the initial data for this research were the information & analytical and statistical reports of the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) for 2016 and of private research organizations, i.e., the International Telecommunication Union. As a result of the research, the authors come to the conclusion that the globalizing world features large competition of the countries, one of the important indicators of competitiveness of which is the level of informatization of their socio-economic systems. At that, media education acquires a new status - the source of creating and supporting the global competitive advantages of a country, as well as a tool for strengthening its positions at the international level. The authors perform evaluation of media education in modern Russia in the conditions of globalization as compared to the USA, with the help of the developed methodology, and determine that as of 2016 media education in modern Russia is characterized by high competitiveness but low sustainability, as compared to the USA. That is, in the short-term, media education allows satisfying the existing needs for development of information economy in Russia. However, in the long-term, this goal cannot be achieved with the current level of media education, which threatens the national course for creation of information economy in Russia until 2025. The practical recommendations are offered in order to solve this problem and to increase competitiveness of media education in modern Russia.
Keywords: media education, globalization, information economy, media literacy, media competence.
Introduction
At present, information & communication technologies (media) became so popular and their capabilities reached such high level, determining the complexity of application, that they cannot be learned independently - which led to such phenomenon as media education. Increase of the role and significance of media education, which, instead of a regular method of increasing the effectiveness of business, became the key method of creation of information economy, determines high actuality of its study and formation & development of the specialized methodological provision, applied to media education.
Precise and authentic evaluation of media education provides the regulatory bodies with the state and dynamics of the level of media competence of specialists in the sphere of information & communication technologies and society's media literacy, as well as perspectives of opening the existing potential in the sphere of development of information economy. Such information is necessary for successful development, correction, and realization of the strategy of development of highly-effective information economy, which occupies a decent position in the international rankings.
While initially the information & communication technologies were used only by certain economic subjects and the level of media competence of their specialists was evaluated only at the corporate level, afterwards informatization acquired the national scale, which led to the level of media competence being evaluated in the scale of sectorial markets, with evaluation of the level of media literacy of population. This tendency is continued by the process of formation of the global information economy.
This research offers a scientific hypothesis that in the conditions of globalization a large competition of the countries is present, one of the most important indicators of competitiveness of which is the level of informatization of their socio-economic systems. At that, media education acquires a new status - a source of creation and keeping the global competitive advantages of the country, as well as a tool for strengthening of its positions at the international level.
This requires renewing (specifying and supplementing) the criteria and priorities of evaluation of media education, as the existing criteria and priorities, which are successfully used at the national scale, do not reflect the country's position in the global arena, which leads to a scientific and practical problem related to the necessity for improvement of the methodological provision of evaluation of media educationin the globalizing world.This problem is to be solved by this study, which is devoted to determination of new criteria and priorities of evaluation of media education in the globalizing world.
Materials and methods
Based on studying and systematizing the leading works and publications on this topic, we compiled the generalized methodology of criterial evaluation of media education, which became the methodological basis of this article. Despite the fact that such evaluation is not performed in practice and the methodological provision is not presented in a clear form in the scientific publications of modern authors, they clearly point out the necessity for strict connection of media education to information economy.
According to this, the most important goal of media educationis stimulating the development of information economy, which determines its following priorities: - provision of mass distribution and creation of conditions for active and wide application of information & communication technologies;
- creation of the educational platform and stimulation (through formation of corresponding values and fashion) of intensive implementation of information & communication technologies in various business processes of entrepreneurship;
- preparation of specialists for achieving the growth of employment in the sphere of information & communication technologies;
- provision to the existing and future specialists in the sphere of information & communication technologies the level of education and opening their creative potential in the level sufficient for stimulating high innovative activity in the sphere of information & communication technologies.
Based on these priorities, we formulate the supposed criteria for evaluating the education according to the existing scientific paradigm.
Table LGeneralizedcriteria and priorities of criterial evaluation ofmedia educationin the conditions of information economy development
Priorities Assessment criteria
Stimulation of mass distribution of information & communication technologies level of society's coverage by information & communication technologies
level of media literacy of population
Stimulation of active implementation of information & communication technologies by business number of implemented information & communication technologies
scale of implementation of information & communication technologies (separate business processes or business on the whole)
share of companies that implement information & communication technologies
Stimulation of growth ofemploymentin the sphere of information & communication technologies level of media competence of specialists in the sphere of information & communication technologies
share of the sphere of information & communication technologies in the structure of economy (GDP)
level of employment in the sphere of information & communication technologies
Stimulation of high innovational activity in the sphere of information & communication technologies number of created innovationsin the sphere of information & communication technologies
Source: compiled by the authors.
Modern Russia is selected as the object of the research, while the USA is a model as a country with developed information economy and leading media education. The main sources of initial data for the research were information & analytical and statistical reports by the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) for 2016, as well as private research organizations, e.g., the International Telecommunication Union. The compiled information on the initial data of the research is given in Table 2.
Table 2. The initial data for the research
Indicators Russia USA
Level of society's coverage by information & communication technologies, % 56 89
Level of media literacy of population, % 45 78
Number of domestic information & communication technologies implemented by business 9,088 806,742
Number of foreign information & communication technologies implemented by business 205,394 23,918
Scale of implementation of information & communication technologies by business, % 31 76
Share ofcompanies that implement information & communication technologies, % 8.5 91
Level of media competence of specialists in the sphere of information & communication technologies, % 42 87
Share of the sphere ofinformation & communication technologies in the structure of economy, % 3,2 29
Level ofemploymentin the sphere ofinformation & communication technologies, % 1,2 24
Number of created new innovationsin the sphere of information & communication technologies 1,182 567
Number of created completely new innovationsin the sphere of information & communication technologies 170 15,368
Source: compiled by the author on the basis of materials: (International Telecommunication Union, 2016; Rosstat, 2016).
Discussion
Various aspects of media education, including its role in provision of media literacy of population and media competence of specialists in the sphere of information & communication technologies are viewed in the works of such scholars as [Vogt and Maschwitz, 2014, p. 15; Vertugo and Fierro, 2014, p. 25; Sánchez Carrero, 2013, p. 266; Carpino, 2016, p. 41; Cuervo and Medrano Samaniego, 2013, p. 124; Dudukalov et al., 2016, p. 512; Gretter and Yadav, 2016, p. 511; Khubetsova, Korkonosenko & Blokhin, 2015, p. 108; Kline, 2016, p. 642; Marta-Lazo, 2016, p. 39; Mudhai, Wrightand Musa, 2016, p. 269; Nupairoj, 2016, p. 35; Ranieriand Fabbro, 2016, p. 478].
The issues of creation of information economy are studied in multiple works: [Volosatova et al., 2014, p. 1021; Ragulina and Zavalko, 2013, p. 162; Przhedetskaya, 2016, p. 232; Kravetsetal., 2014; Fuchs, 2013, p. 64; Roberts and Joseph, 2015, p. 18; Leonova, 2009, p. 14]. At the same time, specifics of development of information economy and evaluation of media education in the globalizing world are left beyond the scope of modern authors. This leads to insufficient development of methodological provisionof study of media education, development of which is viewed in this article.
Results
In the conditions of global competition, during evaluation of media education in the country the competitive component should be taken into account. That is, such evaluation should be performed by the principle of determination of competitiveness - as compared to the selected model. That's why we deem it necessary to correct the priorities of development of media educationin the globalizing world in the following way:
- achieving large-scale distribution and creating conditions for more active and wider application of information & communication technologies, as compared to other countries;
- creating more sustainable and more effective educational platform and stimulating more intensive implementation of information & communication technologies into various business processes of entrepreneurship, as compared to other countries;
- preparing specialists of higher level of media competence for achievement of the higher level of employment in the sphere of information & communication technologies, as compared to other countries;
- providing the existing and future specialists in the sphere of information & communication technologies with such level of education and opening their creative potential in such level so as to stimulate higher innovational activity in the sphere of information & communication technologies, as compared to other countries.
These priorities require specifying and supplementing the criteria of media education in the globalizing world (Table 3).
As is seen from Table 3, most of the existing indicators are specified, with going from the sphere of absolute indicators to the sphere of relative ones, which are viewed as compared to other countries (preferably - to the selected model).We also added new indicators. Thus, within
the priority of stimulation of more active implementation of information & communication technologies by business, as compared to other countries, domestic and imported information & communication technologies are distinguished.
Table 3.Offered criteria and priorities of the criterial evaluation of media education in the
globalizing world
Priorities Assessment criteria
Stimulating large-scale distribution of information & communication technologies, as compared to other countries ratio of the level of society's coverage by information & communication technologies in the country to such level in the model country
ratio of the level of media literacy population in the country to such level in the model country
Stimulating more active implementation of information & communication technologies by business as compared to other countries ratio of the number of the implemented domestic information & communication technologies in the country to the number of such technologies in the model country
ratio of the number of implemented imported information & communication technologies in the country to the number of suchtechnologies in the model country
ratio of the scale of implementation of information & communication technologies in the country to the number of such technologies in the model country
ratio of the share of companies that implement information & communication technologies in the country to the share of such companies in the model country
Stimulating larger growth of employmentin the sphere of information & communication technologies as compared to other countries ratio of the level of media competence of specialists in the sphere of information & communication technologies in the country to such level in the model country
ratio of the share of the sphere of information & communication technologies in the structure of economy (GDP) in the country to such sharein the model country
ratio of the level of employment in the sphere of information & communication technologiesin the country to such level in the model country
Stimulating higher innovational activity in the sphere of information & communication technologies as compared to other countries ratio of the number of created new innovations in the sphere of information & communication technologies in the country to the number of such innovations in the model country
ratio of the number of created completely new innovations in the sphere of information & communication technologies in the country to the number of such innovations in the model country
Source: compiled by the authors.
Within the priority of stimulation of higher innovative activity in the sphere of information & communication technologies, as compared to other countries, the number of created new and completely new technologies is limited. Based on Table 1, we developed the proprietary methodology of the criterial evaluation of media education in the globalizing world in the aspect of its competitiveness, which is performed by the following formula:
Cme = (MP2+IB2+ME+IA)/4 (1)
Where Cme - indicator of competitiveness of media education;
MP - indicator of media literacy of population;
IB - indicator of implementation of information & communication technologiesby business;
ME - indicator of media competence of specialists and employment in the sphere of information &
communication technologies;
IA - indicator of innovative activity in the sphere of information & communication technologies.
In Formula (1), the indicators MP, IB, ME, and IA reflect the achievement of priorities of development of media education in the globalizing worldand are calculated by finding the direct average of the values of the corresponding criteria. These priorities are conventionally divided into two categories. The category of non-specialized media education supposes training
to work within formation & communication technologies for the population and employees of the sphere that do not specialize in information & communication technologies and includes the level of media literacy of population and the level of implementation of information & communication technologies by business.
The category of specialized media education supposes preparation and development of specialists in the sphere of information & communication technologies and includes the level of their media competence and innovative activity. In the context of evaluation of competitiveness of media education, the level of distribution of information & communication technologies comes to the foreground. That's why the indicators of the category of non-specialized media education are squared, which reflects their larger importance.
For more complex evaluation of media educationin the globalizing worldwe offer to evaluate its sustainability according to the following formula:
Sme = (MP+IB+ME2+IA3)/4 (2)
Where Sme - indicator of sustainability of media education.
As is seen from Formula (2), in the context of evaluation of sustainability of media education, the level of development of information & communication technologies comes to the foreground. That's why the indicators from the specialized media educationare squared or even cubed, which reflects higher importance.
The results of evaluation of the indicator of media education competitiveness and the indicator of media educations ustainability are to be compared with the standard method. The larger their value the better. If the value is below 1, it means that competitiveness and/or sustainability of media education in the studied country is very low. If the value is appr. 1, this shows low competitiveness and/or sustainability of media education in the studied country.
In case if the values of these indicators are in the interval 1-2, it reflects high competitiveness and/or sustainability of media education in the studied country. These two indicators' exceeding 2 shows very high competitiveness and/or sustainability of media education in the studied country. Let us perform the evaluation of media education in modern Russia in the globalizing world, as compared to the USA. For that, let us use Table 4.
Table 4. Evaluation of media education in modern Russia in the globalizing world, as compared
to USA, in 2016
Assessment criteria Values
ratio of the level of society's coverage by information & communication technologies in the country to such level in the model country 0.63
ratio of the level of media literacy population in the country to such level in the model country 0.58
MP 0.60
ratio of the number of the implemented domestic information & communication technologies in the country to the number of such technologies in the model country 0.01
ratio of the number of implemented imported information & communication technologies in the country to the number of such technologies in the model country 8.59
ratio of the scale of implementation of information & communication technologies in the country to the number of such technologies in the model country 0.41
ratio of the share of companies that implement information & communication technologies in the country to the share of such companies in the model country 0.09
IB 2.27
ratio of the level of media competence of specialists in the sphere of information & communication technologies in the country to such level in the model country 0.48
ratio of the share of the sphere of information & communication technologies in the structure of 0.11
MegHao6pa30BaHHe. Media Education. 2017. № 2
economy (GDP) in the country to such sharein the model country
ratio of the level of employment in the sphere of information & communication technologies in the country to such level in the model country 0.05
ME 0.21
ratio of the number of created new innovations in the sphere of information & communication technologies in the country to the number of such innovations in the model country 2.08
ratio of the number of created completely new innovations in the sphere of information & communication technologies in the country to the number of such innovations in the model country 0.01
IA 1.05
Cme 1.70
Sme 1.02
As is seen from Table 4, according to the 2016 data, media education in modern Russia is characterized by high competitiveness (1.70—2) but by low sustainability (1.02—>1), as compared to the USA. That is, in the short term media education allows satisfying the existing needs of development of information economy in Russia. However, in the long, term, this goal cannot be achieved with the current level of media education, which threatens the national course at development of information economyin Russia until 2025.
In order to solve this problem and raise the competitiveness of media education in modern Russia, we offer the following practical recommendations, aimed at improvement of the most problem indicators. Firstly, it is recommended to stimulate creation of clusters in the sphere of information & communication technologies.These could be clusters of the companies that work in this sphere and clusters in other spheres, which will include the companies that work in the sphere of information & communication technologies.
Secondly, it is offered to establish the standards in the sphere of media education.The standards of specialized and non-specialized media education are required. Of course, it is necessary to create a special committee that would control observation of these standards. This could be a licensing body. Thirdly, it is recommended to stimulate innovativeactivity in the sphere of information & communication technologies. For that, the standard measures of such regulation can be applied: tax, credit & investment, etc.
Realization of these recommendations will allows for expansion of implementation of domestic information & communication technologies, increase of the share of companies that implement information & communication technologies, increase of the share of the sphere of information & communication technologies in the structure of economy (GDP), increase of the level of employment in the sphere of information & communication technologies, and provision of creation of completely new innovations in the information & communication technologies sphere.
Conclusions
Thus, the offered hypothesis is proved. The authors showed that in the globalizing world there's a need for new criteria for evaluation of media education with emphasis on its competitiveness and sustainability, as well as new priorities of its development in the interests of development of information economy.The main peculiarity of the sphere of information & communication technologies in the globalizing world is that it ceases to play a supporting, infrastructural role in development of an economic system and becomes an independent sphere of economy, which is evaluated not as a supplement to other spheres but in contrast to such sphere in other countries.
According to this, the role of media education also transforms, going from teaching the narrow circle of interested persons to work with information & communication technologies to
mass training and formation of values related to renewal and wide use of information & communication technologies. This requires reconsideration of the concept of media education and development of new strategies of creation of information economy in connection to the influence of globalization, which is a perspective direction for further research in this sphere.
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