A media effects typology of media literacy interventions

Central to media literacy education efforts is countering harmful media effects, and such media effects are of various types. We propose a typology of media literacy interventions based on which kind of media effect they aim to mitigate. In this study, we focus on negative media effects and propose an initial typology of four categories: imitation, inadequacy, selling, and misinformation. We describe the kind of interventions that target each type. To explore this typology, we re-analyze data from a recent meta-analysis of media literacy interventions and found evidence consistent with three of them as separate constructs. Imitation-type interventions produced strong effects on critical beliefs about media. Inadequacy-type interventions were associated with strong effects on behavioral intentions and behavior. Selling-type interventions tended to produce consistently limited effects. This typology, and partial empirical support found for it, offers a conceptual framework for organizing and guiding future research in media literacy scholarship.