In contemporary information society, finding, evaluating and using information is a key survival skill. Conventional and new media such as libraries, archives, mass media and the Internet serve an important function in society as the sources of information. This chapter will focus on findings from research that was carried out in Egypt, India, Finland, Argentina and Kenya. Based on empirical research, it gives an overview of how young people today use a variety of sources for information seeking and describes the implications of these findings for media literacy programs.
The chapter specifically explores young people’s use of new digital and conventional media for information seeking and disseminating. Media diaries were collected from 175 children in Argentina, 100 in Egypt, 160 in India and 144 in Finland by the project researchers. With the help of the Nokia Research Centre we also managed to obtain 48 completed diaries from Kenya. All diaries were collected in the first half of 2010. Some light will also be shed on efforts led by international organizations, especially UNESCO, to foster teacher training in media and information literacy and create worldwide awareness of this competence.