Media Literacy: An Analysis of Social Media Usage among Millennials

Abstract

Fast technological development has impact to smartphone technology. The smartphone users unconsciously become dependent to the technology. Media literacy to adolescents is important and it will give critical analysis in the access of media messages and create messages by using the media. This research aims at knowing media literacy to the uses of social media (Facebook and Instagram) among adolescents in South Tangerang. Theory of Media Literacy from James Potter was used as the main concept in the research. It used quantitative approach with positivism paradigm and survey research method. The data collection was used through questionnaire with purposive sampling technique which was defined as the sampling method. The research findings indicate that media literacy level among adolescents bases on the Individual Competence Framework that consists of three indicators: media literacy level on the basis of Use Skill, and it gets average value of 36.38 for 60.93% of the respondents. It includes the medium category in the Critical Understanding indicators and it has average value of 47.85 from 51.72% of the respondents and it includes the medium category in the indicators of Communicative Abilities it gets average value of 27.34 from 59.77% of the respondents and it includes the medium category.