Potreba uvođenja medijskog odgoja u hrvatski obrazovni sustav

The emergence of the mass media has brought many changes in people`s lives. Mass media has changed the way of communication between people, the informations can be reached quickly and easily, and mass media has also changed the role of primary school. Today the role of the school is not only to provide information but it is also to develop critical thinking in order to avoid manipulative role of the media. There is an increasing need for media literacy of children and youth because they are spending most of their free time using the mass media. Media Literacy includes critical access media messages and channels which transmitted this media messages to the receiver, and Media Literacy also teaches critical access owners that define media messages. In this paper is displayed the results of research on the need for the introduction of media education in the Croatian education system. The aim of this study was to discover how many students are familiar with the influence of the mass media, how much time they spend using the mass media and what is their opinion on the introduction of media education in the Croatian education system. By analyzing the results, we concluded that children spend their free time mostly using the mass media. Because of that it is necessary to introduce some changes in the education system so that children will learned the power of the media, and in order to warn on the negative sides of mass media, but equally to meet children with all of the positive aspects of the mass media.