The Role of Media Literacy in Shaping Parents' Awareness of Their Children's Usage of Digital Platforms

In light of the developments of electronic media and the spread of digital platforms and their multiplicity between the general and the specialized, digital platforms have become one of the New Media tools that have tried to present themselves as alternative platforms to traditional television, and have been able to set new standards for television broadcasting exemplified by the new form and content for the substance presented through these platforms.
Hence the importance of media literacy so that parents know how to deal with various media in general and digital media and digital platforms in particular, and how they can benefit from them to advance and develop culture and education for children and help control, rationalize, and crystallize the effects of media in a framework that serves the desired goals.
Hence, this study seeks to know the extent to which parents’ media literacy affects their children’s usage of digital platforms, the quality of the content they are exposed to. That is achieved through in-depth interviews with specialists in the fields of child psychology, media literacy, and child culture.
The study concluded that increasing the level of media literacy among parents leads to an increase in their ability to direct and advise with regard to selecting positively effective content for their children that suits their age groups, tendencies, and physical, mental, intellectual and cognitive changes. Media campaigns, targeting parents, must be initiated with focus on the importance of media literacy and the merits and demerits of consuming media throughout all media channels and social networking websites to ensure easy access to them.