Media Perception of children

Abstract

The media, which means communication media and media tools, is increasing day by day in our lives. Especially children constitute the most affected group of people from the media. The interaction of children with media and media tools is closely related to how they are perceived and used by them. In order to be able to understand the relationship between the media and the individual in a complete and detailed way, it is necessary to understand the media’s perceptions in childrens and youngs’ minds. The aim of this research is to reveal the media perceptions of middle school students (5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade) and the concepts related to the cognitive dimension of the students. In this case study conducted in case studies, the facts that middle school students have about “media” are examined. The data were obtained from the forms presented in a province with a metropolitan area in the Central Anatolia Region and selected 200 students by a random method. The data were analyzed and the word association test was used. A frequency table was generated from the data obtained from the test results. With this frequency table, concept nets revealing the cognitive structures of the students related to the media concept have been revealed. The data are interpreted according to the associations occurring in the concept networks obtained. As a result of the research, it has been seen that the students have associated the media with the 218 different concepts which once repeated 148 of them, and mostly through internet and social media applications.