...Adult Media Literacy A review of the research literature on behalf of Ofcom By Sonia Livingstone Elizabeth Van Couvering Nancy Thumim Department of Media and Communications London School of Economics and Political Science Houghton Street London WC2A 2AE Tel: +44 (0) 20 7955 7710 Fax:+44 (0) 20 7955 7248 E-mail: s.livingstone@lse.ac.uk Ofcom Adult media literacy Preface Ofcom is the independent regulator for the UK communications industry. As part of Ofcom’s work to promote media literacy we plan to undertake or support a range of research activities to monitor people’s skills, knowledge and understanding of communications technologies and the content they watch and listen to either through broadcasting or online. Ofcom defines media literacy as the ability to access, understand and create communications in a variety of contexts. We have published our strategy and priorities for the promotion of media literacy and these can be found on our website. In October 2004 we commissioned Professor David Buckingham and Professor Sonia Livingstone to report on recent relevant academic and other publicly-available research into children’s and adults’ media literacy respectively. The purpose of this work was to outline the range of studies conducted, the gaps in research, provide examples of innovative methodologies, and outline possible barriers and enablers to media literacy identified by these studies. These reviews have admirably fulfilled their task, and provide a...
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