The Relationship Between Media Literacy and Ethical Usage of Social Media among the Youth in Ghana

Ramatu Mustapha Dadzie; Franklin Nkudefe Adjotor

doi:10.63772/jocmas.v8n1.5

Authors

Ramatu Mustapha Dadzie University of Media, Arts and Communication -National Film and Television Institute (UniMAC -NAFTI) Author https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6677-1225
Franklin Nkudefe Adjotor University of Media, Arts and Communication -National Film and Television Institute (UniMAC -NAFTI) Author https://orcid.org/0009-0005-9162-2730

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.63772/jocmas.v8n1.5

Keywords:

Media Literacy, Ethical Use, Social Media, Youth, Ghana

Abstract

The surge in social media platforms has made everyone a creator of content on the online space for both the young and old. This follows the amazingly powerful tools that aid in the discovering, editing and sharing content without the checks and control mechanisms ascribed to the traditional media. Yet, alongside this development and opportunities in the technology has come a rise in inappropriate use of social media. This has become a major social and ethical concern. This paper examines the relationship between social media competence and the ethical usage of social media by the youth. Findings reveal that media literacy skills among the youth in Ghana is generally high but does not correspond to ethical social media use behaviour.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Usage Statistics

Abstract Views: 7
PDF Downloads: 3

References

Ahn, J., Oh, S., & Kim, H. (2013). Korean pop takes off! Social media strategy of the Korean entertainment industry. Paper presented at the 2013 10th International Conference on Service Systems and Service Management, 774–777. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSSSM.2013.6602528 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSSSM.2013.6602528

Akti, S., & Gürol, A. (2012). Determining the relationship between media literacy and social skills. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 64, 238–243. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.11.028

Altun, S. (2015). The effect of cooperative learning on students’ achievement and views on the science and technology course. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 7(3), 45–468.

Ba, S., & Pavlou, P. A. (2002). Evidence of the effect of trust-building technology in electronic markets: Price premiums and buyer behavior. MIS Quarterly, 26(3), 243–268. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/4132332

Barrett-Maitland, N., & Lynch, J. (2019). Security and privacy from a legal, ethical, and technical perspective. In N. Barrett-Maitland & J. Lynch (Eds.), Social media, ethics and the privacy paradox (pp. 1–20). https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90906 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90906

Bodily, R., Leary, H., & West, R. E. (2019). Research trends in instructional design and technology journals. British Journal of Educational Technology, 50(1), 64–79. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.12712

Chai, S. (2020). Does cultural difference matter on social media?: An examination of the ethical culture and information privacy concerns. Sustainability, 12(19), 8286. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/su12198286

Chen, P., & Vromen, A. (2012). Social media, youth participation, and Australian elections. Australian Electoral Commission. Australia.

Cookingham, L. M., & Ryan, G. L. (2015). The impact of social media on the sexual and social wellness of the youth. Journal of Pediatric and Youth Gynecology, 28(1), 2–5. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpag.2014.03.001

Davidson, A., & Silkane, V. (2018). The relationship between media literacy and civic participation among young adults in Latvia. Paper presented at the 6th European Conference on Information Literacy, ECIL 2018, September 24–27, 2018, Oulu, Finland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13472-3_10 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13472-3_10

Duflo, E., Dupas, P., & Kremer, M. (2021). The impact of free secondary education: Experimental evidence from Ghana. National Bureau of Economic Research. https://www.nber.org/papers/w28937 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3386/w28937

Dowrick, P. W. (1986). Social survival for children: A trainer’s resource book. Brunner/Mazel.

Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook “friends”: Social capital and college students’ use of online social network sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4), 1143–1168. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00367.x

Ghana Statistical Service. (2021). Ghana 2021 population and housing census volume 3B. Government of Ghana.

Gresham, F. M., Sugai, G., & Horner, R. H. (2001). Interpreting outcomes of social skills training for students with high-incidence disabilities. Exceptional Children, 67(3), 331–344. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/001440290106700303

Gee, J. P. (2000). New people in new worlds: Networks, the new capitalism, and schools. In B. Cope & M. Kalantzis (Eds.), Multiliteracies: Literacy, learning & the design of social futures (pp. 43–68). Macmillan.

Golbeck, J., Robles, C., & Turner, K. (2011). Predicting personality with social media. Conference Proceedings on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2011, Extended Abstracts Volume, 253–262. https://doi.org/10.1145/1979742.1979614 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/1979742.1979614

Han, B., Cook, P., & Baldwin, T. (2014). Text-based Twitter user geolocation prediction. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, 49, 451–500. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1613/jair.4200

Hargittai, E. (2010). Digital Na(t)ives? Variation in internet skills and uses among members of the “Net Generation.” Sociological Inquiry, 80(1), 92–113. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-682X.2009.00317.x

Hops, H. (1983). Children’s social competence and skill: Current research practices and future directions. Behavior Therapy, 14(1), 3–18. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0005-7894(83)80084-7

Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media. Business Horizons, 53(1), 59–68. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2009.09.003

Kieran, M. (2002). Media ethics. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203003619 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203003619

Kostelnik, M. (2002). Guiding children’s social development: Theory to practice (4th ed.). Delmar.

Kvalnes, Ø. (2020). Leadership and ethics in social media. In Digital dilemmas (pp. 65–82). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45927-7_4 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45927-7_4

Leme, V. B. R., Del Prette, Z. A. P., & Coimbra, S. (2015). Social skills, social support, and well-being in the youth of different family configurations. Paidéia (Ribeirão Preto), 25(60), 9–17. https://doi.org/10.1590/1982-432725602015032 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/1982-43272560201503

Levine, L. E., Waite, B. M., & Bowman, L. L. (2007). Electronic media use, reading, and academic distractibility in college youth. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 10(4), 560–566. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1089/cpb.2007.9990

Livingstone, S. (2004). Media literacy and the challenge of new information and communication technologies. The Communication Review, 7(1), 3–14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10714420490280152

Markwei, E. D., & Appiah, D. (2016). The impact of social media on Ghanaian youth: A case study of the Nima and Maamobi communities in Accra, Ghana.

Masterman, L. (2001). Teaching the media. Routledge.

McKenna, K. Y., & Seidman, G. (2006). Considering the interactions. In Computers, phones, and the Internet: Domesticating information technology (Vol. 2, p. 279).

Mingle, J., & Adams, M. (2015). Social media network participation and academic performance in senior high schools in Ghana. Library Philosophy and Practice, Article 1286.

Ocanse, S. K. A., & Oduro, C. F. (2016). The impact of social media on the youth: The Ghanaian perspective. International Journal of Engineering Technology and Sciences, 6(1), 87–97. DOI: https://doi.org/10.15282/ijets.6.2016.1.12.1062

Pea, R., Nass, C., Meheula, L., Rance, M., Kumar, A., Bamford, H., & Yang, S. (2012). Media use, face-to-face communication, media multitasking, and social well-being among 8- to 12-year-old girls. Developmental Psychology, 48(2), 327–336. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027030

Potter, J. A. (1998). Qualitative and discourse analysis. In N. Schooler (Ed.), Comprehensive clinical psychology (Vol. 3, pp. 117–144). Pergamon. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B0080-4270(73)00267-4

Rehm, M., Manca, S., Brandon, D., & Greenhow, C. (2019). Beyond disciplinary boundaries: Mapping educational science in the discourse on social media. Teachers College Record, 121(14), 1–24. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811912101403

Rideout, V., Roberts, D. F., & Foehr, U. G. (2005). Generation M: Media in the lives of 8–18-year-olds. Kaiser Family Foundation. http://www.kff.org/entmedia/entmedia030905pkg.cfm

Roberts, D. F., & Foehr, U. G. (2008). Trends in media use. Future of Children, 18(1), 11–37. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/foc.0.0000

Schreyer, J. (2012). The youth literacy practices in online social spaces. In New media literacies and participatory popular culture across borders (pp. 72–84). Routledge.

Shasavari, A., Ebrahimzadeh, D. R., Hemmati, A., & Tabesh, M. (2016). Relationship between media literacy and social skills among citizens in Isfahan. Urban Management, 43, 141–150.

Shochat, T., Flint-Bretler, O., & Tzischinsky, O. (2010). Sleep patterns, electronic media exposure and daytime sleep-related behaviours among Israeli youth. Acta Paediatrica, 99(9), 1396–1400. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1651-2227.2010.01821.x

Thomas, P. B., Hogan-Taylor, C., Yankoski, M., & Weninger, T. (2021). Pilot study suggests online media literacy programming reduces belief in false news in Indonesia. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2107.08034 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v27i1.11683

Tugtekin, E. B., & Koc, M. (2020). Understanding the relationship between new media literacy, communication skills, and democratic tendency: Model development and testing. New Media & Society, 22(10), 1922–1941. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444819887705

Vanwynsberghe, H., Vanderlinde, R., Georges, A., & Verdegem, P. (2015). The librarian 2.0: Identifying a typology of librarians’ social media literacy. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 47(4), 283–293. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0961000613520027

Walker, H. M., Colvin, G., & Ramsey, E. (1995). Antisocial behavior in school: Strategies and best practices. Brooks/Cole. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/019874299602100307

Wiszniewski, D., & Coyne, R. (2002). Mask and identity: The hermeneutics of self-construction in the information age. In K. A. Renninger & W. Shumar (Eds.), Building virtual communities: Learning and change in cyberspace (pp. 191–214). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511606373.012 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511606373.012

Yang, C. C. (2016). Instagram use, loneliness, and social comparison orientation: Interact and browse on social media, but don’t compare. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 19(12), 703–708. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2016.0201