Children’s Media Literacy in the Nations: Summary report

Executive summary

Media literacy enables people to have the skills, knowledge and understanding they need to make full use of the opportunities presented both by traditional and by new communications services. Media literacy also helps people to manage content and communications, and protect themselves and their families from the potential risks associated with using these services.

This summary report provides an accessible overview of some of the key measures of media literacy across the devolved Nations of the UK among children and young people aged 5-15 and their parents/carers. The dataset comprises results from fieldwork conducted in spring and autumn of 2009 among 284 children and their parents/carers in Scotland, 294 children and their parents/carers in Wales, and 205 children and their parents/carers in Northern Ireland.

Because the population of England represents 83% of the population of the UK as a whole, findings for England are very similar to those for the UK, and therefore this report does not contain a separate summary for the English findings, although the data is charted for reference purposes.