A poll conducted by the King Car Cultural and Educational Foundation in March found that students from the fifth grade of elementary school to the second year of high school were critical of information they received from media outlets.
According to the poll, 94.8 percent of interviewees said that the content of news is affected by the political stance of the media outlet or its advertisers.
The poll showed that 87.8 percent of respondents regularly compare information from different sources, including online sites and forum posts.
More than 60 percent of interviewees were on the fence regarding the reliability of information reported by media outlets, according to the poll.
The poll received 1,766 valid responses, or 88.3 percent of the surveys handed out. It has a confidence level of 97 percent and a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
However, New Taipei City Beisin Elementary School teacher Chang Chia-lun (張嘉倫), who has taught media literacy for more than a decade, said that young people’s familiarity with media might breed contempt.
For the young generation, media is as necessary as sunlight, air or water, Chang said, adding that students often distribute information themselves.
While there is a trend toward criticism of the media, the same standard is not necessarily upheld when they distribute information on the Internet, which is worrying, she said.
Internet bullying is extremely rampant at schools and the anonymity offered by the Internet is abused to level false or vicious accusations aimed at hurting or ostracizing their fellow students, she added.
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