A Study On The Enhancement Of Media Literacy Of Civil Servants In A New Media Age

In recent years, with China’s continuous social and economic development, media has become more and more important in the progression of social events. In today’s new media age, the public’s consciousness of participation in state affairs is growing, and the process of social democratization is accelerating. Civil servants’ understanding of media, attitudes towards media, use of media, choices and judgments of medium content, as well as whether or not they can release moderate degree of information accurately and cooperate better with media are all important signs to measure government’s administrative ability. Under this circumstance, the government is facing a new and more complicated media environment. Therefore, Civil servants’ media literacy should be cultivated, and their ability of dealing with the new media should be improved, for this is of greater urgency and importance in enhancing the party’s governance capability and constructing a modern and transparent government.This thesis reviews the development of theories in this field, sums up the specific content of civil servants’ media literacy in new media environment, i.e. Civil servants with good media literacy can correctly understand new media, and can correctly manage new media and to use new media properly. This thesis presents a more detailed investigation of the media literacy of civil servants in Fuxin through analyzing their understanding of media literacy, contact with media, motivation of the contact, comprehension of the nature of media, and attitudes towards media. Using the case of Fuxin to bring along the majority, this thesis probes into the current situation of civil servants’ media literacy and points out the existing problems in terms of this point, i.e. misapprehension of media in this new media environment, lack of consciousness of serving the masses, and failure of exploiting new media in dealing with public emergencies. These problems can be attributed to the incomplete training system in terms of civil servants’ media literacy, the lack of exploitation of new media in dealing with public emergencies, inappropriate handling of the relations between government and media.To solve the deficiencies, this thesis puts forwards the following solutions: strengthening the training of civil servants’ media literacy, fully making use of new media in guiding public opinions towards emergencies, appropriately handling the relations with media, consummating the system of news spokesman and so on. All of the solutions proposed in this thesis are of great significance in constructing a transparent government and enhancing the party’s governance capability. In this sense, this thesis could shed some light on the enhancement of media literacy of China’s civil servants in both theory and practice.