Arab Educational Information Network

The current study was conducted to investigate media education, attempting to delineate media competences, identify international best practices and outline how appropriately media can be taught in the Saudi context. The descriptive analytical methods were used to extract evidence from previous literature as well as from documents of international experiences. Competences of media education were identified as: access, analysis and evaluation, creativity, reflection, and action. They can be view on a two-dimensional framework: consuming-prosuming and functional-critical, with the two dimensions intersect in four levels: functional-consuming, critical-consuming, functional-prosuming, and critical-prosuming. While the lowest level (functional-consuming) embraces simple competences like understanding symbols used in in social media chats, the highest level is composed of the most advanced competences, such as the creativity and production of media contents as well as to critically think of the social and cultural values of social media messages. Review of international country experiences showed that media can be taught across curriculum, but more effectively as a separate subject or in integration with other subjects, such as the native language, as observed in European countries. Interestingly, national curriculum framework of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia permits introducing media education. Teaching media can enrich the set of skills (e.g., critical thinking, creative thinking, communication, and use of ICT) as well as the set of values (e.g., moderation, self-efficacy, curiosity, and responsibility). Media can be integrated as a field within one or more of the eleven fields constituting the framework, such as Arabic language, social studies, digital technology, and art education. Most importantly, media should be taught using the empowerment approaches via critical thinking, avoiding the protection approaches, direct instruction, and dictation. (Published Abstract)