Access to Digital Media and Digital Literacy among Ghanaian Youth: An Explore, Engage, Empower Model Study

Abstract

Across Africa, increased availability of mobile devices and internet connectivity means that more young people can participate in digital spaces. Yet media access and use are not universal either across the continent or within countries. Indeed, as the euphoria around technological advancements wanes, researchers and policymakers recognise that technology has the capacity to exacerbate social and other inequalities. This paper problematises the capacity of under-served African youth to effectively use media, given scholarship that suggests that frequent media use enhances digital literacy capacity. It makes use of a quantitative approach by surveying students in senior high schools using a multi-stage sampling approach and draws on the explore, engage, empower (EEE) model to examine young people’s access to digital spaces and how this shapes the acquisition of digital literacy skills. The findings from a nationwide survey of senior high school students in Ghana, using a newly developed media and information literacy (MIL) scale, indicate that Ghana’s youths have reasonably high levels of access to digital spaces (83 per cent) and that such access is related to their development of specific MIL skills, including competencies of accessing, critically evaluating, and creating and sharing information in digital spaces.