DIGITAL MEDIA LITERACY: SOCIAL MEDIA FOR NEWS CONSUMPTION AMONG THE GENERATION Z IN ATIMONAN, QUEZON

The foundation of digital media literacy is a basic understanding of how the media works and engage with digital media in an effective, responsible and meaningful way. This study explored the news consumption of Generation Z residing in Atimonan, Quezon through social media. It specifically sought to determine the respondents’ social attributes (i.e. sex, age) and resources (i.e., educational attainment, household family income), as well as their level of exposure to social media news, respondents’ level of digital media literacy in terms of access to social media news, response to the issues/news online, evaluation on news information and the issues they encountered relative to use of social media for news consumption. In order to obtain information about the various objectives mentioned, the study used a descriptive research method that investigated through a quantitative method and used a set of survey questionnaires. This study used a quantitative approach through a descriptive survey method. The survey questionnaire used in getting information about the different objectives from the 100 Atimonan Residents included in the Generation Z and identified as social media users. The data were collected using the descriptive survey method and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics such as frequency, percentage, and weighted mean. Results revealed that most of the respondents rely on Facebook as a source for online news, it is also revealed that they have a high level of digital media literacy when it comes to access to social media news. Meaning to say they have enough knowledge on how to use the existing social media platforms. Apart from that, however they have a low level of digital media literacy when responding to certain issues/news online, even if they pay attention to news articles and the likes; they scored low on what to do when they encountered harmful content. Moreover, they also have a low level of digital media literacy when it comes to evaluating news information online. It is interesting that they know the possible consequences of sharing wrong or unverified information however they lack basic skills in evaluating the whole content. This became important ability in fighting fake news, and the likes. In terms of issues online, they often encountered several problems such as there is too much misleading content that is created to frame an issue or information, too many advertisements, and slow internet connection.