A number of previous studies have documented the link between media literacy and civic or political participation, and some researchers argue that the advancement of media literacy may encourage citizens to take part in addressing various issues of societal concern. However, the previous studies tend to include relatively few civic or political activities in the measurements and do not demonstrate in detail how different dimensions of media literacy are related to particular forms of participation. This study addresses these issues using survey data from Latvia (N = 871). The results show that a link between media literacy and civic participation exists, but media literacy explains a relatively small variance in civic participation activities. We advocate caution when considering whether media literacy itself promotes civic participation, because other phenomena, which further studies should explore, could contribute to both media literacy and civic participation. While acknowledging the general importance of media literacy, this paper argues that individuals with these skills do not necessarily use them for civic participation, and that increased levels of media literacy may not offset the structural reasons for low civic activity in a society.

中文翻译：

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媒体素养可以帮助促进公民参与吗？没那么简单

之前的一些研究记录了媒体素养与公民或政治参与之间的联系，一些研究人员认为，媒体素养的提高可能会鼓励公民参与解决各种社会关注的问题。然而，之前的研究倾向于在测量中包括相对较少的公民或政治活动，并且没有详细说明媒体素养的不同维度如何与特定参与形式相关。本研究使用来自拉脱维亚 (N = 871) 的调查数据解决了这些问题。结果表明，媒体素养与公民参与之间存在联系，但媒体素养解释了公民参与活动中相对较小的差异。在考虑媒体素养本身是否促进公民参与时，我们提倡谨慎，因为应该进一步研究的其他现象可能有助于媒体素养和公民参与。虽然承认媒体素养的普遍重要性，但本文认为，拥有这些技能的个人不一定将其用于公民参与，并且媒体素养水平的提高可能无法抵消社会中公民活动低下的结构性原因。