Thaindian News

Washington, April 20 (ANI): Communication media especially television and Internet can have both positive and negative impacts on adolescent students, but it doesn’t mean that they should stop using it. Instead they should learn how to use them.

This is one of the premises of the UNESCO Cathedra in Communication and Educational Values, based at the Faculty of Philosophy and Educational Sciences of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU).

“Our objective is the communication media -mainly new technologies and television- as agents of socialisation. We are convinced that, in the socialisation of adolescents, it is the family that fundamentally counts, then friends and then the communication media, which has been shown to have more importance than the school”, explained Concepcion Medrano, coordinator of the Cathedra.

Young people “are concerned” about their favourite television personalities, which shows they tend to identify with them. In fact, according to Medrano, a good indicator of values perceived with television is the set of characteristics that adolescents most like about these personalities.

“We observe that they choose their favourites, first for their friendliness and humour; then for their personality, their work, for having a non-conformist and rebellious attitude, and for their intelligence; and finally, for their physical attractiveness. It is interesting that physical attractiveness is valued last”, she stated.

Moreover, she stresses that they tend to perceive values that are more collectivist than individualist in these personalities.

On the other hand Medrano said adolescents with less life experience appear to take television more seriously.

“These perceive television in a more realist way when they have less experience of life. In a way, it affects them more,” she said.

For example, an adolescent that does not go out much and sees young people in a series drinking alcohol every weekend will understand this as being normal amongst adolescents.

The greater the realism perceived the greater identification with what is happening in the medium.

Overall she concluded that adolescent students should learn how to use their media and not give up using them, so that they can only gain from it. (ANI)