Analysis of media literacy amongst Indian youth in context to digital culture with special reference to Indore city Madhya Pradesh

Abstract

We are living in the age of ubiquitous and pervasive media environment which is entertaining, engaging, immersive, attractive, etc and these qualities of media environment fascinates youth towards media consumption. Media environment is full of opportunities and challenges simultaneously. For exploring the opportunities in media and reducing the risk involved in it, we need media literacy skill sets. Media literacy help us in many ways, it not only make us competent to decode and interpret media messages efficiently but also to understand nature, structure and process of media and information ecosystem, filter useful content from unwanted content, to dig out the truth and identify biases hidden in the message, to make informed choices, to consume and produce media content with mindfulness, to develop critical thinking and rational approach, etc. Nowadays media not only information, educate, entertain and persuade us but it has also started to play the role of peer who reduce our loneliness, guide us about the latest trend and style statements, and with whom we spend a lot of time. We are so much acquainted with media that we cannot think of our life without media today. Though people of all age groups consume media more or less but media consumption of youth is higher as compared to other age groups. The study aims to analyse media literacy amongst Indian youth in context to digital culture with special reference to Indore City of Madhya Pradesh. To analyse media literacy amongst Indian youth, researcher tried to find out youths media consumption, their media preferences, media production habit of youth, digital culture, and cyber wellness amongst youth along with perspectives of experts on media literacy, youth and digital culture. Data from n=541 youth was collected using survey method while data from n=14 media literacy experts has been collected in form of open-ended structured questionnaire. Survey data was analysed using frequency and percentage distribution while data of interview wa