Bringing Media Literacy Education into the School Curriculum: A Trilevel Adoption of Innovation Model

Abstract

This study views media literacy education as an educational innovation and examines what factors affect the adoption of media education in secondary schools in Hong Kong. Diffusion of innovations and the sociology of consumer behavior constitute the theoretical foundation of this study. Findings indicate that although teachers are important agents in the adoption of a media literacy education initiative, they are also under school resource constraints and affected by the social climate of education reform. This study further develops the theory of diffusion of innovations by adding the societal factor into the traditional model. It proposes a holistic innovation adoption model in which individual, organizational, and societal factors all contribute to the adoption of media literacy education in Hong Kong schools.