Computers & Education 124 (2018) 1–13

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Computers & Education

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compedu

Establishing the norm of new media literacy of Singaporean

T
students: Implications to policy and pedagogy
Der-Thanq Chena, Tzu-Bin Linb,∗, Jen-Yi Lic, Ling Leec
a
Associate Professor, Curriculum, Teaching and Leaning, National Institute of Education, Singapore
b
Associate Professor, Department of Education, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan
c
Independent Researcher, National Institute of Education, Singapore

A R T IC LE I N F O ABS TRA CT

Keywords: With the increasing impact of new media, Singapore has responded to the fast-changing media
Media in education environment within the educational sector. A large-scale study was conducted in Singaporean
Computer-mediated communication schools to establish the norm of Singaporean students’ new media literacy. This was based on a
Elementary education conceptual framework of new media literacy (Lin et al., 2013). The development and validation
Secondary education
of the measurement instrument can be found in Lee et al. (2015). This paper focuses on findings
Pedagogical issues
from the main study. A total of 4577 students, between 10 and 15 years old, from 52 schools
participated in the study. That is, one-seventh of the Singaporean schools were involved in this
survey study. To our best knowledge, there has not been any other study like this one carried out
within the Asian context. Therefore, the findings offer valuable insights in theorizing new media
and media literacy as well as for policy-makers and educators in countries with similar new
media ecologies. Implications of this study suggest that it is possible to achieve gender equality
for new media literary education. They also point to a new direction of inquiry by exploring new
media literacy from a second language learning perspective.

1. Introduction

In East Asia, media literacy education has been promoted since the mid-1990s by different public and private agencies in various
countries such as Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea (Cheung, 2005; Jeong, 2009; Lin, 2009; Lin & Choy, 2015). In the
nearly twenty-year development, media literacy education has become increasingly significant in various education reform agendas
in this region. Singapore started introducing this educational practice in the first decade of the 21st century with a focus on new
media and media literacy education. Media literacy and its educational practices in Singapore used to be mainly in tertiary education
and not in primary or secondary levels (Lim & Nekmat, 2009). However, with the increasing impact of new media, the Ministry of
Education in Singapore has endeavored to promote media literacy education in all schools. Media literacy is now embedded in the
21st century skills framework in Singapore (Weninger, 2017) and part of the primary and secondary English syllabi (English Unit
CPDD MOE, 2010). Specifically, media literacy is inscribed in various education policies in Singapore though it is not a stand-alone
subject. Meanwhile, the Media Literacy Council (MLC) was formed in 2012, which works with media industry, government and local
communities to mainly promote online safety in Singapore. The MLC targets more children and adolescents rather than adults. For
example, the theme of its most recent call for research proposal was ‘Better Internet x Youths’.1
It seems that Singapore adopted new media literacy policies based on existing models in other countries such as the UK, Australia,

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: odin.london@gmail.com (T.-B. Lin).
1
For details, please refer to: http://www.medialiteracycouncil.sg/Pages/CFP.aspx.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.04.010
Received 26 October 2017; Received in revised form 16 April 2018; Accepted 25 April 2018
Available online 17 May 2018
0360-1315/ © 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
D.-T. Chen et al. Computers & Education 124 (2018) 1–13

Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong. The policies also reflected the need to deal with various issues and challenges deriving from the
proliferation of social media such as Facebook and Twitter. A large-scale investigation into new media literacy skills among
Singaporean school students was carried out and the findings were expected to be the basis of formulating media literacy education in
pre-university education in Singapore. This paper presents the key findings of this study and offers suggestions for future research.

2. New media literacy (NML): an emerging concept

Before moving into the discussion of new media literacy (henceforth NML), it is crucial to clarify the use of terminologies. These
are terms such as ‘media literacy’, ‘media education’ and ‘media literacy education’. These terms are used by different academics in
various contexts. Some may view media education as the process of making people media literate thus making media literacy the
outcome (Buckingham, 2003), while others combine media literacy and media education together as media literacy education
(Aguaded, 2012; NAMLE, n.d.). Media literacy education is increasingly popular in East Asian contexts. In this paper, media literacy
education will be used.
Deriving from the concept of media literacy, NML is an emerging concept from the discussion and practices of media literacy
education in East Asia. Unlike most forerunners in media literacy such as the UK, Australia and Scandinavian countries, countries in
East Asia only started promoting media literacy in the last decade of the 20th century during the era of fast expansion and con-
vergence of media. In Singapore, media literacy was part of the ‘global media city’ initiative proposed by the Media Development
Authority (MDA) (Media Development Authority of Singapore, 2003). It has been integrated into the English syllabi of primary and
secondary education since 2010 (Lin, Mokhtar, & Wang, 2015). With the recognition of the importance of new media technologies
and social media in Singapore's society and the distinct approach from the conventional media literacy agenda, NML is proposed as an
emerging concept to better understand the media ecology under the Web 2.0 era (Lin et al., 2013).
A preliminary framework of NML was proposed by Chen, Wu, and Wang (2011). It consists of two continua with two featured
ideas of consuming and prosuming. This framework was further refined (see Fig. 1) with ten detailed indicators (refer to Table 1 for
respective definitions) by Lin et al. (2013) based on various discourses of media literacy and new media studies (Table 2).
In the refined NML framework, NML can be categorized as media “consuming” and “prosuming” based on the use of literacy as a
metaphor in media literacy literature that refers to two aspects of literacy, the competencies of reading and writing (Buckingham,
2003; Burn & Durran, 2007) and the conception of “prosumer” (Toffler, 1981). Therefore, the two categories represent the capability
to consume media (as reading) or to produce-and-consume - (thus writing/prosuming) new media. It can also be differentiated by
functional and critical literacies. Functional literacies refer to the capabilities of knowing how and relate to skills and knowledge.
Critical literacies focus on the capabilities of meaning making as well as judging the credibility and usefulness of the message at hand.
Putting these two considerations together, therefore, NML is consisted of four quadrants: (a) functional consuming, (b) functional
prosuming, (c) critical consuming and (d) critical prosuming literacies. The functional consuming literacy can be more specifically
referred to as the ability to gain access to new media and understand what is being conveyed while the critical consuming literacy
refers to media consumers' ability to study the social economic, political and cultural contexts of the media content. Meanwhile,
functional prosuming literacy involves ability to participate in the creation of media content and critical prosuming literacy focuses
on individuals’ contextual interpretation of the media content during their media participation activities. The definitions of the ten
indicators are listed in Table 1. Detailed explanations and discussion of these indicators can be found in Lin et al. (2015).

Fig. 1. A refined framework of New Media Literacy. Adapted from “Understanding new media literacy: An explorative theoretical framework,” by
Lin et al. (2013).

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Table 1
Indicators and Definitions of the proposed NML Framework.
Indicator Definitions

Functional consuming literacy

Consuming skill A series of technical skills necessary for consuming media contents
Understanding The ability to grasp the meaning of the media contents at the surface textual level
Critical consuming literacy
Analysis The ability to deconstruct media messages
Synthesis The ability to sample and remix media content in a meaningful manner
Evaluation The ability to question, criticize, and challenge the credibility of media contents
Functional prosuming literacy
Prosuming skill The set of technical skills necessary to prosume media contents
Distribution The ability to disseminate new media artifact at hand
Production The ability to duplicate (partly or completely) or mix media contents.
Critical prosuming literacy
Participation The ability to participate interactively and critically in new media environments
Creation The ability to create media contents especially with a critical understanding of embedded socio-cultural values and ideology issues

Table 2
Measuring instrument details.
Constructs Scales Number of items Measurement scale

functional consuming functional consuming skills 12 Independency

understanding 6 Agreement
critical consuming analysis 5 Frequency
synthesis 4 Frequency
evaluation 4 Agreement
functional prosuming functional prosuming skills 12 Independency
distribution 5 Frequency
production 1.0 4 Frequency
production 2.0 4 Frequency
critical prosuming participation 5 Frequency

3. Application of NML framework: the development of a measuring instrument

Although media literacy has a longer history of practicing in various countries than that of NML, there is little research related to
exploring how to measure the media literacy of an individual and how an individual's media literacy is related to various factors
(Brandtweiner, Donat, & Kerschbaum, 2010; Knobel, Stone, & Warschauer, 2002; Mills, 2010). Take access to media as an example.
Angus, Snyder, and Sutherland-Smith (2004) conducted a case study to investigate the digital practices of four families with different
social and economic resources. They found that the level of participants' economic power has a significant impact on the nature and
quality of their practices of adopting technology at both home and school. Thus, access to media has a certain association with an
individual's social economic status. As to NML, only one instrument has been created that focuses on measuring new media literacy
skills (Lee et al., 2015). This instrument serves a practical purpose in the local context. The details of the instrument are as follow:

4. Evidence-based policy-making and NML

Compared to NML, media literacy is the forerunner and media literacy education has a place in school curriculums in the UK,
Australia and other countries. At and above the government level, there are also policies related to media literacy and media literacy
education. For example, UNESCO proposes a global strategy to promote media (literacy) education (Buckingham, 2001) and a new
agenda attempting to combine media and information literacy together.2 These UNESCO policies are based on various studies in
different countries. Furthermore, UNESCO proposed a framework to combine media literacy and information literacy to form ‘media
and information literacy’ (henceforth MIL) (Grizzle & Calvo, 2013). The purpose of UNESCO advocating for MIL is to preserve
cultural diversity and multilingualism. To some extent, these are policies based on research evidence. An evidence-based policy-
making approach is preferable and as a better model of policymaking in public policymaking including education policy
(Bogenschneider & Corbett, 2010).
In the East Asian context, Taiwan was the first Asian country to issue a White Paper on Media Literacy Education (Lin, 2009).
Unlike the UNESCO policies on media literacy, before issuing the white paper, there did not appear to be any solid research evidence
focusing on understanding students' conventional and new media literacies in the Taiwanese context (Lin, 2008). As a result, the
implementation of media literacy education encountered various difficulties because there was a gap between what was inscribed in
the policy documents and what students practiced daily. Moreover, without a good understanding of students’ level of media literacy,

2
Please refer to: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/media-development/media-literacy/mil-as-composite-concept/.

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it was not feasible to produce proper learning resources. A different approach was taken by Ministry of Education Singapore. Prior to
the promotion of NML in Singaporean Schools, the ministry approached a group of researchers to conduct a study to map out the level
of NML skills among Singaporean Students as part of its evidence-based policy making process. The current study is one of such
efforts.

5. Research objectives

This paper presents the findings to respond to two objectives:

1. To assess the level of new media literacy skills of Singaporean school students. This is important for NML education in Singapore.
We need to know students' current skills set of new media literacy to inform the new media education policies of MOE.
2. To explore the factors that may affect the new media literacy of students. To help students develop NML, we need to understand
what possible factors may affect their literacy level. This has policy implications for MOE's new media education.

6. Methodological remarks

In this section, various methodological issues including the development of the NML measuring instrument, research participants,
and how data was collected are explained. This study adopted a survey research design. In total, there were 4579 students between
primary 4 and secondary 3 levels involved in this NML survey. In terms of school number, one-seventh of the schools were chosen for
the main survey. Therefore, the findings, as aforementioned, should offer policy implications after comparing them to existing ones.

6.1. Developing and validating a measuring instrument

Table 3 shows sample items of the survey along various dimensions. Please refer to Lee et al. (2015) for detailed discussion of the
instrument.

6.2. Participants

Participants were students from primary schools, secondary schools and Junior Colleges in Singapore. The study involved more
participating schools: 30 primary schools and 22 secondary schools. Participants in each school were selected through a stratified
systematic sampling approach. Specifically, students were first stratified based on their grade level and class, i.e., Primary 4, 5 and 6,
and Secondary 1, 2 and 3, and then selected via their registration number. This procedure ensured that individuals in the population
with different grade levels were represented in the sample. More details on the sample are presented in Table 4.

6.3. Data collection and analysis

The data collection was carried out after obtaining ethical clearance. Participants were required to answer an online ques-
tionnaire. The survey contained 13 pages (computer screens) of questions, including four pages of demographic and background
questions. In terms of the survey time, 95% of the participants completed the survey within 40 min. All participation was voluntary
and anonymous and there was an information sheet for those who assisted in survey implementation at each survey venue, i.e. the
schools. That is, the survey was conducted in the respective school where the participants study in. The period of data collection
lasted four months in 2012. Data analysis was implemented right after the data collection using SPSS.

6.4. Findings

Findings of this study are presented in three sections. We first illustrate how Singaporean youth are highly competent in technical

Table 3
Construct, type of measure and sample items of the instrument.
Instrument Dimensions Sample items

Functional Consuming_Skill “Watch TV or listen to radio on the Internet”

Functional Consuming_Understanding
Critical Consuming_Analysis
Critical-Consuming_Synthesis
Critical Consuming_Evaluation
Functional_Prosuming_Skill
Functional_Prosuming_Distribution
Functional_Prosuming_Production 1.0
Functional_Prosuming_Production 2.0
Critical_Prosuming_Participation
“I can recall main ideas after watching a video clip”
“When I read a New Media Message, I find it is selling some values”
“I compare prices or features for product information over the internet”
“I check whether a website is safe for me to shop online”
“Set up a blog account”
“I use social bookmarking service such as “delicious” to share a link”
“I turn (scan or type) hardcopy into digital format”
“I post my comments on public websites such as YouTube, Wikipedia, or Yahoo! News”
“I buy, sell or exchange virtual stuff on online forums, social networking platforms or online games”

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Table 4
Demographic characteristics of participants (N = 4579).
n %

Grade
Primary 2757 60
Secondary 1822 40
Gender
Male 2207 48
Female 2370 52
Missing 2 <1

Note. Numbers refer to participants whose data were valid for analysis.
Totals of percentages are not 100 for every characteristic because of
rounding. The total number of participants is 4,579, but two participants did
not indicate their gender.

skills related to NML. It is followed by the presentation of the norm of NML for Singaporean youth. How NML correlates to other
factors is shown in the third section.

6.4.1. New media technical skills

Singaporean school students are well equipped with new media technical skills, which include consuming and prosuming skills. A
‘ceiling effect’ was observed in this study. More specifically, all participants showed a rather high (respective means of 4.33 and 4.16
with relatively small SDs) competency on the consuming and prosuming skills (Table 5).

6.4.2. Norm of students’ NML

Tables 6 and 7 demonstrate primary students and secondary students' score distribution on four types of literacy. The percentiles
shown in the tables can be used as a norm for understanding the profiles of new media literacy expressed by students at specific grade
levels in Singaporean schools. In Table 6, 50% of the primary 4 students scored less than 2.72 on the dimension of critical consuming.
If primary 4 students from a certain school gain a mean score lower than 2.72, one implication is that schools may consider putting
more emphasis on students’ criticality in its future teaching and learning practices.
In Table 7, 50% of the secondary 2 students scored less than 4.00, 3.17, 2.58, & 2.40 on the dimensions of FC, CC, FP, & CP
respectively. For example, a secondary 2 class that was randomly chosen had its mean scores as follows: 3.87 on FC; 3.32 on CC; 3.28
on FP, and 3.15 on CP. It implies that, for this class, students' FC is lower than 50% of secondary 2 students while students' CC & CP
are higher than 50% of secondary 2 students and FP is higher than 75% of secondary 2 students in Singapore. Through this com-
parison, the survey can not only map out the big picture of NML in Singaporean schools but also offer practical information for
individual classes and schools regarding their strengths and weaknesses in the four dimensions of NML. Teachers and school leaders
can apply this data to plan actions to improve students’ performance in NML. Meanwhile, this finding shows that it is either that
Singaporean students are well-equipped with both consuming and prosuming skills, or that the instrument was pitched at too low of a
level. Since the instrument was developed based on various instruments adopted by peer-reviewed studies, we tend to suggest it is the
former. However, we caution that this is based on a self-reported survey. The findings need to be interpreted in light of this nature.

6.4.3. NML and its correlates

In this section, descriptive statistics is applied to illustrate the relationship between students’ new media literacy with other

Table 5
Singapore primary and secondary students’ consuming skill and prosuming skill.
Level N Mean Std. Deviation

Primary 4 FCS 892 3.94 .75

FPS 892 3.79 .88
Primary 5 FCS 890 4.18 .68
FPS 890 4.04 .76
Primary 6 FCS 976 4.43 .60
FPS 976 4.27 .67
Sec 1 FCS 704 4.49 .48
FPS 704 4.30 .58
Sec 2 FCS 579 4.55 .51
FPS 579 4.38 .57
Sec 3 FCS 538 4.56 .54
FPS 538 4.33 .58
Total FCS 4579 4.33 .66
FPS 4579 4.16 .73

Note. FCS=Functional Consuming Skill; FPS= Functional Prosuming Skill.

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Table 6
Primary students’ new media literacy.
Grade Level Functional Consuming (FC) Critical Consuming (CC) Functional Prosuming (FP) Critical Prosuming (CP)

Primary 4 N Valid 892 892 892 892

Mean 3.59 2.77 2.24 2.16
Std. Deviation .92 .86 .91 .98
Percentiles 10 2.50 1.67 1.22 1.00
25 3.00 2.14 1.51 1.40
50 3.67 2.72 2.03 2.00
75 4.33 3.36 2.83 2.80
90 4.83 3.94 3.56 3.6
Primary 5 N Valid 890 890 890 890
Mean 3.73 2.97 2.44 2.39
Std. Deviation .97 .83 .95 .99
Percentiles 10 2.33 1.86 1.28 1.20
25 3.17 2.33 1.67 1.60
50 4.00 2.97 2.28 2.20
75 4.50 3.56 3.03 3.00
90 4.83 4.06 3.83 3.80
Primary 6 N Valid 976 976 976 976
Mean 4.01 3.17 2.60 2.52
Std. Deviation .95 .82 .93 .99
Percentiles 10 2.83 2.10 1.50 1.40
25 3.67 2.58 1.87 1.80
50 4.17 3.14 2.42 2.40
75 4.67 3.77 3.17 3.20
90 5.00 4.28 4.03 4.00

Table 7
Secondary students’ new media literacy.
Grade Level Functional Consuming (FC) Critical Consuming (CC) Functional Prosuming (FP) Critical Prosuming (CP)

Sec 1 N Valid 704 704 704 704

Mean 3.93 3.03 2.53 2.43
Std. Deviation .92 .79 .87 .95
Percentiles 10 3.00 2.00 1.51 1.20
25 3.50 2.45 1.86 1.60
50 4.00 3.06 2.42 2.20
75 4.67 3.60 3.08 3.00
90 5.00 4.07 3.76 3.80
Sec 2 N Valid 579 579 579 579
Mean 3.83 3.16 2.71 2.53
Std. Deviation 1.02 .72 .88 .95
Percentiles 10 2.50 2.22 1.64 1.40
25 3.50 2.67 2.03 1.80
50 4.00 3.17 2.58 2.40
75 4.50 3.64 3.25 3.20
90 5.00 4.08 3.94 4.00
Sec 3 N Valid 538 538 538 538
Mean 3.87 3.19 2.60 2.49
Std. Deviation .98 .72 .79 .88
Percentiles 10 2.83 2.22 1.67 1.40
25 3.67 2.67 2.00 1.80
50 4.00 3.21 2.50 2.40
75 4.50 3.67 3.09 3.00
90 5.00 4.17 3.69 3.60

factors such as gender, grade level, social-economic-status (SES), and the time they spent online. According to Wiliamson, Parker, and
Kendrick (1989), when dealing with large sample size in a study, the results could easily have statistical significance but they might
not be practically important. Therefore, it is suggested to use exploratory data analysis, such as box-plots, to visually summarize and
compare groups of data and thus identify patterns that may otherwise be hidden in a data set.

6.4.4. Gender
As shown in Fig. 2, male students (n = 2207) did not score higher than female students (n = 2370) on the four types of NML:
functional consuming (boys: M = 3.80, SD = 1.04; girls: M = 3.85, SD = 0.90), critical consuming (boys: M = 3.06, SD = 0.85; girls:
M = 3.02, SD = 0.79), functional prosuming (boys: M = 2.57, SD = 0.95; girls: M = 2.44, SD = 0.86), and critical prosuming (boys:
M = 2.53, SD = 1.02; girls: M = 2.30, SD = 0.92). This finding is different from previous studies, (e.g., Sotirovic, 2008) where most

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Fig. 2. Students' new media literacy and gender.

of them found significant differences between boys and girls. This phenomenon indicates that Singaporean students’ new media
literacy has little relationship with gender.

6.4.5. Grade level

From the data, students' new media literacy is associated with their grade level. In Fig. 3, a developmental trend from primary 4 to
primary 6 was evident. However, it plateaued from secondary 1 to secondary 3. This could be explained by indicating that older
students’ exposure to new media in and out of school contexts is more than younger ones. It is worth mentioning that primary 6 shows
a notable turning point. With this finding, we propose a possible new theoretical lens to explore NML in the discussion section.

6.4.6. Social-economic-status (SES)

In this study, we collected three types of indicators, namely computer ownership, internet accessibility, and dwelling type to
represent SES. The chi-square tests of independence between “computer ownership” and “dwelling type” (p < 0.001), as well as
“internet accessibility” and “dwelling type” (p < 0.001) suggests that computer ownership and internet accessibility are highly
associated with dwelling type. The cross-tabulation of observed frequencies and percentages for dwelling type and computer own-
ership, as well as internet accessibility and dwelling type are presented in Tables 8 and 9. This finding is consistent with most other
studies (e.g., Adler, 2014; Lampos, Aletras, Geyti, Zou, & Cox, 2016; Müller, Sancho, & Hernández, 2009).
Data from the Department of Statistics of Singapore (2010) also suggested that the dwelling type could generally reflect a family's
monthly income. This can be well represented by the 50 and 75 percentiles shown in Table 10. Therefore, dwelling type was used as
the indicator to represent SES.
Eight types of dwelling were examined in this study: (a) HDB 1- or 2-room flat (n = 204), (b) HDB 3-room flat (n = 962), (c) HDB
4-room flat (n = 1448), (d) HDB 5-room flat (n = 987), (e) HDB executive flat (n = 240), (f) condominium (or private) flat
(n = 432), (g) landed properties (n = 189), and (h) others that were different from the rest (n = 109). Note that two types of
dwelling, namely “condominium” and “others” seemed to demonstrate “unexpected” effects and hence were deleted from the pre-
sentation graph for better visualization of the increasing trend as seen from Fig. 4. It is suggested that their effects can be neglected
based on two reasons. First, buyers of condominiums in Singapore are not necessarily those families who obtain a very high monthly
income. That is, some lower income families are also allowed to buy a condominium flat if they want. Second, the meaning of the
category “others” appeared to be unclear and this category can be regarded as relatively rare as compared to other categories.

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Fig. 3. Students' new media literacy and grade level.

Table 8
Cross-tabulation of observed frequencies and percentages for computer ownership × dwelling type interaction.
Dwelling Type Computer Ownership Total

None One Two Three or more

HDB 1 or 2 room flat 36 (18) 68 (34) 52 (26) 44 (22) 200

HDB 3 room flat 56 (6) 293 (31) 293 (31) 317 (33) 959
HDB 4 room flat 44 (3) 326 (23) 417 (29) 656 (45) 1443
HDB 5 room flat 20 (2) 134 (14) 279 (28) 550 (56) 983
HDB Executive flat 3 (1) 24 (10) 51 (21) 162 (68) 240
Landed Properties 3 (2) 15 (8) 28 (15) 143 (76) 189
Condominium or Private flat 5 (1) 50 (12) 81 (19) 295 (68) 431
Others 7 (6) 25 (23) 27 (25) 49 (45) 108
Total 174 (4) 935 (21) 1228 (27) 2216 (48) 4553

Note. Pearson Chi-square value = 480.62, df = 21, p = 0.000 (p < 0.001). Percentages appear in parentheses.

Besides, as shown in Table 7, 50% of this type of dwelling was not higher than condominium flats or landed properties. These thus
supported the decision of excluding both “condominium” and “others” when interpreting the role of social-economic-status in stu-
dents’ new media literacy.
As recognized in Fig. 4, students with higher SES scored higher on the four types of new media literacy. We also explored the
relation between computer ownership, internet accessibility and students’ new media literacy, and it was found that students from
families with more computers and hand phones tend to have relatively higher scores on the four types of new media literacy. A
possible explanation can be that students from families with higher SES tend to have more access to new media and therefore more

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Table 9
Cross-tabulation of observed frequencies and percentages for internet accessibility × dwelling type interaction.
Dwelling Type Q9b. Do you have internet access at home? Total

Yes No

HDB 1 or 2 room flat 155 (78) 43 (22) 198

HDB 3 room flat 870 (93) 67 (7) 937
HDB 4 room flat 1371 (97) 41 (3) 1412
HDB 5 room flat 941 (97) 25 (3) 966
HDB Executive flat 234 (98) 5 (2) 239
Landed Properties 181 (98) 3 (2) 184
Condominium or Private flat 414 (99) 6 (1) 420
Others 95 (90) 10 (10) 105
Total 4261 (96) 200 (4) 4461

Note. Pearson Chi-square value = 191.29, df = 7, p = 0.000 (p < 0.001) Percentages appear in parentheses.

Table 10
Percentiles of resident households by monthly household income from work and type of dwelling.
Dwelling type 50 percentiles 75 percentiles

HDB 1- or 2-room flat < S$ 1000 S$ 1000–1499

HDB 3-room flat S$ 2500–2999 S$ 5000–5999
HDB 4-room flat S$ 4500–4999 S$ 7000–7999
HDB 5-room flat and HDB executive flat S$ 6000–6999 S$ 10,000–10,999
Condominium (or private) flat S$ 11,000–11,999 N.A.
Landed properties S$ 12,000–12,999 N.A.
Others S$ 5000–5999 S$ 11,000–11,999

opportunities to consume and presume media contents. However, this needs to be substantiated with further investigations.

6.4.7. Time spent online

Students' time spent online seemed to be another factor that is associated with their new media literacy. We examined students’
time spent during a regular school week and holiday week. As presented in Table 11, half of Singaporean students spent more than
11 h online during the holiday week, and during a regular school week almost half of students spent more than 6 h online. As
presented in Figs. 5 and 6, students tend to obtain higher scores on four types of new media literacy with more time spent online,
either during a regular school week or holiday week.

7. Discussion

From the above findings, various features of the norm can be highlighted. They have been put back into its context - the schools
and schooling in Singapore. The first point is that Singaporean students have acquired high levels of new media technical skills. The
finding corresponds to Weiss (2014), who indicated that Singaporeans are highly wired and tech-savvy in the Southeast Asian region.
The self-reported perceptions of Singaporean students in NML are quite high but we need additional research to reveal how these
reflect their actual NML skills, and perceived NML skills in other student populations. The findings are a good baseline to comparative
studies to come. While this is worthy of celebration, in terms of school curriculum design and pedagogical practices, there is still
space for policy makers, school leaders and teachers to further develop students’ critical prosuming competencies.
Secondly, there is no significant difference in NML skills between male and female students. Our findings offer evidence to argue
for the relation between gender and the use of new media. This phenomenon indicates that Singapore has achieved excellent gender
equality in terms of students’ new media literacy, a great achievement debunking a common phenomenon that boys are better than
girls in competencies related to technology. For example, research in other countries (Sotirovic, 2008) found that there is a gender
difference in applying new media, especially in their behavior.
Thirdly, as to the relation between SES and NML, there is a correlation between these two factors. NML is positively correlated to
SES and this is consistent with other existing literature on new media or news literacy (Adler, 2014; Lampos et al., 2016; Müller et al.,
2009). Those people with higher SES tend to have better new media literacy. Therefore, the issue of access to new media irrespective
of students’ financial means should be incorporated in the discussion of teaching NML in Singaporean schools.
In Fig. 3, a trajectory of continuing development from primary 4 to primary 6 can be identified. NML increases as the grade level
of students increases, but only up to primary 6. The four dimensions of NML keep rising but move to a plateau phase when students
enter secondary 1. That means students' NML in all dimensions remain stagnant from secondary 1 to secondary 3. In order to explain
this plateau-phase phenomenon, we propose a possible direction for future study. Various researchers use the term ‘literacy’ with
different prefixes. Therefore, literacy becomes a term widely applied in social science when its origin is from the studies of language
and of second language acquisition. A literate individual means that s/he has the ability to read and write. This term is valid in the

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Fig. 4. Students' new media literacy and dwelling type.

Table 11
Frequencies and cumulative percentage of Singapore students’ time spent online in a regular school week and holiday
week.
No. of students No. of students
In a regular school week In a holiday week

more than 30 h a week 453 (9.90%) 960 (20.97%)

21–30 h a week 262 (15.62%) 329 (28.16%)
16–20 h a week 357 (23.42%) 468 (38.39%)
11–15 h a week 423 (32.66%) 532 (50.01%)
6–10 h a week 677 (47.44%) 710 (65.52%)
1–5 h a week 1106 (71.60%) 847 (84.03%)
around an hour a week 651 (85.82%) 420 (93.21%)
less than half an hour a week 364 (93.77%) 202 (97.62%)
No time 285 (100.00%) 109 (100.00%)

Note. Cumulative percentages appear in parentheses.

framework of NML (Lin et al., 2013) because the ideas of consuming and prosuming are derived from the conceptualization of
reading and writing. A further move could be made to this argument with the advancement of studying in multimodality and
grammar of visual images (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001; Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006; Yamada-Rice, 2011). Learning about new media
may be similar to acquiring a second language. Therefore, we propose that new media could be understood as a second language in a
multimodal form. For example, Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) attempted to develop a type of grammar, which is an idea borrowed
from language study to understand images. The plateaued performance in NML at primary 6 suggests that developing NML at the

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Fig. 5. Students' new media literacy and time spent online in a regular school week.

primary level is most significant, just like the development of language at the early age of 24 months predicts higher academic and
behavioural functioning later (e.g., Morgan, Farkas, Hillemeier, Hammer, & Maczuga, 2015). If this lens of NML as a second language
holds, it may be useful to have a closer examination of NML at the primary level. It may be inferred that developing NML in primary
school could be beneficial in later years, similar to how language develops at an early age. Following this argument, further questions
could be raised to provide a possible explanation to the plateau-phase phenomenon we found among Singaporean students. What is
the best time for learning new media? Is there any golden period, such as the pre-secondary level of schooling, for individuals to
acquire NML? We do not have solid and sound answers for these questions we have raised. However, we have identified a potential
gap within current research based on the phenomenon we have observed in Singapore. To investigate this conjecture, more inter-
disciplinary research is essential in the local Singaporean and global contexts.

8. Limitations

There are a few limitations of this study. Firstly, as a common limitation of all survey studies, the collected data were based on
respondents’ perception, which is just a proxy to the actual literacy. An ideal approach would be to develop an instrument based on
assessment of student performance. However, this is not practical as the time and resources involved would increase exponentially.
Due to this limitation, a more conservative interpretation of the findings therefore was observed throughout the paper.
Secondly, this study adopted the NML instrument developed by (Lee et al., 2015) to establish the norm. Such instrumentation
issues as the fundamental differences between concepts NML skills, activity of NM use, and self-efficacy beliefs in NML skills are not
addressed because they are not the focus of this paper.
Finally, we have to acknowledge that the norm is not fixed but changeable according to changing contexts. It needs to be re-
established over time due to the rapid development of technologies, media ecology and practice.

9. Concluding remarks

The current study has established the norm of NML for Singaporean students while subsequent longitudinal, cross-sectional and
comparative studies are necessary to better inform education policy. Based on our current findings, there are implications for policy

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Fig. 6. Students' new media literacy and time spent online in a holiday week.

makers and school leaders to consider. First, in terms of NML technical skills, Singaporean students performed well. However,
criticality and other aspects such as creativity within NML are also important and need to be better addressed. Second, SES is a
predictor to students’ NML. Therefore, some proactive interventions could be conceived to reduce the potential digital divide. By
doing so, a better equity, in terms of new media use, could be achieved. Third, as described in the beginning of this paper, the current
Singaporean education policy related to NML is integrated in the English language syllabus and mainly focused on online safety. It
only covers a part of the NML spectrum. Other aspects such as prosuming skills and criticality will need to be addressed in future
policy agendas. Regarding the local research agenda, we propose that a design-based study could be commissioned by MOE to
develop effective curriculum aiming for critical prosuming (i.e., creating and participating).
As to international researchers who are interested in NML, the case of Singapore provides a case of building a norm of NML.
Similar surveys could be conducted in other countries. More research findings can have international comparison of NML and inform
the further refinement of existing NML theoretical framework and instruments. Different socio-cultural contexts have to be con-
sidered when applying the existing instrument. What we found in the Singaporean case is that both ethical and cognitive aspects of
NML are important, but how to strike a balance in teaching NML in schools requires more discussion. Since the instrument is
validated, researchers could conduct a longitudinal study to collect data for a longer period of time (e.g., collection data from 3
consecutive years) to monitor the progress of students' NML. Then, international partners can be invited to adopt the instrument for
international comparative studies to see how well local students stand in comparison with students from other nations. Results from
international comparison can inform local polices on NML. Third, we would like to explore the question we raised about when the
best time for learning NML is. Or, is there a golden period like when we learn a language since we apply the metaphor of ‘literacy’
borrowed from the study of language? How to better bridge the study of NML and traditional literacy and language learning is
another promising direction of future investigation.
Finally, we offer two caveats of limitations of the current study. First, the dimensions consuming skill and prosuming skill were
found to exhibit ceiling effects. It is not clear whether this phenomenon is only applied to the education context of Singapore.
Therefore, future research can still consider measuring and validating these two dimensions in different cultural/educational

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contexts. Second, the dimensions of “creation” and “participation” may not well represent the “critical prosuming” literacy as ex-
pected. Specifically, items from the creation dimension failed to measure both participants' creativity and criticality. This seems to
corroborate with the literature that indicates the difficulty in measuring creativity through self-reported measures (Khatena, 1992;
Lee et al., 2015). Similarly, the items from the participation dimension may not fully measure individuals' criticality as well. Therefore,
future studies may consider the use of performance-based assessments (e.g., in-situ tasks) to examine individuals’ creativity and/or
criticality involved in new media literacy.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Office of Education Research in the National Institute Education Singapore for funding our project
titled ‘New Media Literacy of School Students in Singapore’. Project number is OER32/09 VC. Also, we appreciate the comments from
reviewers which make this paper better.

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