Exploring media literacy formation at the intersection of family, school, and peers

Šušterič, Nika (author), Koren Ošljak, Katja (author), Tašner, Veronika (author)

Today, media literacy and digital skills are essential for personal communication and social interaction. Children and adolescents need these skills to act autonomously in highly digitised social contexts. These skills are acquired in different social spaces, most frequently and primarily at home, followed by peer groups, school, and extracurricular activities. The present study aims to conceptually situate media literacy within a broader network of social power relations. It is therefore grounded in an academic theoretical framework that constructs media literacy as a form of digital cultural capital. As such, media literacy also contains the principles of media preferences and choices that condition the media choices of young people. This draws our attention to the social contexts in which media literacy and digital skills of children and teenagers are formed: within the family, school, and peers. With a selective thematic analysis of qualitative interviews with 67 primary and secondary school students (12–19 years), the empirical research is focused on different contextual incentives and regulations related to the formation of students’ media literacy, primarily in relation to digital media. First, we examine parenting practices that frame home access to media and media practices within families. Then, we explore the characteristics of formal media education within schools, which seems limited to teaching with/through media. Finally, we identify peer networks as important promoters of both digital capital and elements of advanced media practices and skills, compared to the media literacy encouraged within families and schools.

• Language: English
• Keywords: digital capital, media education, media practices, primary school students, secondary school students
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences; PEF - Faculty of Education
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: 17 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 13, article [no.] ǂ9098
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-176200
• UDC: 37.011.22:659.3
• ISSN on article: 2183-2439
• DOI: 10.17645/mac.9098
• COBISS.SI-ID: 222000387
• Publication date in RUL: 25.11.2025

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Media and communication
• Publisher: Cogitatio Press
• ISSN: 2183-2439
• COBISS.SI-ID: 520259865

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: digitalni kapital, medijska vzgoja, medijske prakse, osnovnošolci, srednješolci

Projects

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: J5-2564
• Name: Medijski repertoarji mladih: Socialni, politični in kulturni aspekti digitaliziranega vsakdana