Research On Rural Left-behind Children's Media Literacy Education

With the rapid development of China's economy,a large number of young rural labor move to the cities.Due to the mobility of urban life and economic reasons,they had to leave their children in the rural areas.Since then a special minor groups ——left-behind children increasingly grow.These left-behind children are at their critical period of growth.In the new media age,due to the long absence of their parents,many left-behind children obsess with media communication,and mass media act as their spiritual upbringing,became "surrogate parents."But media's impact on the left-behind children is difficult to estimate.Therefore,how to improve the media literacy of left-behind children in rural areas,train them with a critical and skeptical eye to choose,receive,evaluate media messages,and improve the ability to use the media information for the development of personal and social use,has become an urgent and practical issue.To study this issue,this paper adopted questionnaires and in-depth interviews,and participatory activities on media literacy education in MeiheElementary School in Xinzheng city in July 2012,in Fenghua Experimental Elementary School in Yuanyang county in July 2013.It was found that left-behind children's media literacy is unoptimistic,mainly as follows: firstly,the motivation of left-behind children's media use is mainly entertainment;secondly,they have the willingness for participating in the media,but lack of chances;thirdly,they lack the methods and skills of media use.In addition,guardians lack media knowledge and relevant education of schools is not in place are both disadvantages for left-behind children's media literacy education.On the basis of above,the paper summarized the experience of media literacy education participatory action and discussed how to organize a participatory action.At last,countermeasures and suggestions on how to carry out the left-behind children's media literacy education were discussed from the perspective of government,schools,the Guardian,and the media.