Prospects of media education: Children empowerment through media literacy by the parents

Media not only in Pakistan but all over the world have become the most influential and dominant source of information and entertainment. With the growing number of electronic gadgets, the device usage has been an indispensable component of these digitally aged children without which they feel their lives incomplete. The vast majority of children spend the significant amount of time using media devices in order to gratify their social needs and to gain information and entertainment, but its impact on young children is certainly undeniable. In relation to this context, the role of parents would be considered highly important in monitoring their children media-related activities. The in-depth interviews from parents of children aged between 8-13 years from Islamabad were conducted to understand their perceptions regarding the media related activities of their children, their mediation strategies, their key concerns, their awareness of media literacy, its significance value for children and their willingness to implement media literacy in educational curriculum for their children empowerment. The key finding indicates that advocating for initiation and implementation of media literacy education will be beneficial and enhance critical thinking skills among children to understand and evaluate media content and messages. Empowering children through media literacy education can address the major serious concerns of parents because restriction or limitation of children media usage is no longer effective. Hence, this study suggests that the engagement and active participation of children with these devices should be encouraged in a productive style. This study proposes that a high level of parental monitoring occurs when children use devices. Parents should monitor their children device usage. This recommends that parents need to have discussions with their children regarding their media related activities, because they are always worried about their children media usage both in school and at in home.