Media Literacy and Mechanisms for Mothers to Supervise over Youth Satellite TV Usage

A number of media pundits believe that satellite TV networks are the most popular media with considerable effect on the formation of people’s personalities. As children approach adolescence, importance of the media role and their effects on young adults grows and parents’ concern regarding the effects of satellite TV on their adolescent children seems to intensify and they step up their supervision over their adolescents’ satellite TV usage. With respect to the growing importance of the role mothers play in bringing up children, they also seem to play a stronger role in supervision over their children’s satellite TV usage. Mothers’ roles in relation to children and media can be classified within various educational patterns and their supervision over their young adults’ satellite TV usage can be put in a spectrum from elimination of usage to absence of supervision. The researcher is after finding answers to the following two questions: a) What strategies do mothers use to control their adolescent children’s satellite TV use? b) How mothers’ media literacy can affect these supervising methods? To find answers to these questions, in-depth interviews were conducted with 30 mothers who have adolescent children and the effect of media literacy on mothers’ control mechanisms regarding satellite TV usage of their adolescent children were reviewed and categorized. The findings of the research indicate that developing mothers’ media literacy is the most important factor in choosing the strategy for controlling satellite TV usage of adolescents. Absence of mothers’ media literacy leaves unsuitable effects on mechanisms of controlling their adolescents’ usage of media.