Abstract:

The world hosts technological innovations that facilitate, direct an deven reshape human life. One of these innovations is undoubtedly the media. The fact that the media appealing to groups of all ages is well perceived by individuals necessitates media literacy in societies. The aim of this research is to reveal the thoughts of social studies teacher candidates about media literacy. This study was carried out in the phenomenology pattern, which is one of the qualitative research methods. The study group of the research consists of 30 teacher candidates from the 1 st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades of the Social Studies Program of Kahramanmaraş Sütçü İmam University Faculty of Education in the spring term of the 2020-2021 academic year. In the selection of the study group of the research, the easily accessible case sampling method, which is one of the purposeful sampling methods, was used. The obtained data were collected through a semi- structured interview form consinsting of 9 openended questions prepared by the researcher. The semi- structured interview form was prepared by reviewing the literature, and firs a pool of 30 questions was created. After the prepared questions were subject to the necessary examinations by the field experts, they were reduced to 9 questions considering the content validity and the current interview form was obtained. The interview form was presented to the teacher candidates online and content analysis was used to analyze the obtained data. As a result of the research, teacher candidates especially use electronical media, their media literacy lewels are not low considering the data obtained and the meaning they attribute to the functions of the media, that not only teacher but also individuals from all ages in the society shoult be made aware of media literacy, and that the majority of teacher candidates participating in the study are in educational activities. It has been concluded that they believe that media types should be used.

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