Double Link of New Media Exposure to Political News and the News Literacy of Thai Youths
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14456/jiskku.2023.16Keywords:
News literacy, Political news, Social media, Youth, Media exposureAbstract
Purpose: The objective of this research was to determine the relationship between media exposure to political news and news literacy of Thai youths.
Methodology: This study applied the Quantitative Research method. Twelve hundred samples were collected through multi-stage sampling from undergraduate students in Thailand’s northeastern region. Each university type presented 400 questionnaires used as a research tool for gathering data. The content validity of the questionnaire was examined, and Cronbach's alpha was also applied in a pre-test stage to measure the reliability of the research instrument. The alpha coefficient for all items was 0.93.
Findings: Youths were moderately exposed to news from social media (Mean = 3.10, S.D = 1.19). It was also determined that youths had a high level of accessibility to political news (Mean = 3.80, S.D. = 2.98). The credibility of the channels and the verification of the accuracy and credibility of the news were checked at high levels (Mean = 3.59, S.D = 2.91; Mean = 3.60, S.D. = 2.94 respectively). Youths showed a high level of participation in political issues in general (Mean = 3.57, S.D = 1.75). In addition, it was found that political knowledge and the Clubhouse of politicians/political actors correlated with news literacy at the statistically significant level of 0.01. The highest correlation values were 0.579 and 0.567, respectively.
Applications of this study: Educational institutions, especially at the high school level, should organize activities of political cognizance in the subject of citizenship to promote political news exposure to prepare young people to become first-time voters in higher education level. Further, governments, political parties, and politicians should select political pages as the main channel for political communication, because it can reach youths, first-time voters in particular, within all demographics. Also, strengthening news literacy skills among youths is therefore essential to reduce the impact of news exposure through social media and encourage young people to take advantage of access to various news sources to quickly analyze and wisely verify the accuracy and credibility of news, thereby relieving situations where Thai society faces political polarization and conflicts so as not to be a victim of ill-wishers.
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