Author(s):
Pereira, Sara ; Pereira, Luís
Date: 2015
Persistent ID: https://hdl.handle.net/1822/44215
Origin: RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho
Subject(s): Digital media; ICT governmental program; Educational public policy; Basic education; Media literacy; Ciências Sociais::Ciências da Comunicação
Description
This article examines the political and the media discourses concerning the Portuguese governmental program responsible for delivering a laptop named “Magalhães” to all primary school children. The analysis is based on the official documents related to the launch and development of the initiative as well as the press coverage of this topic. The main purpose is to recognize the dominant public discourses and to find out what the media select for the debate in the public sphere. This analysis was done with a particular focus on the critical media literacy framework. The results reveal that the press highlighted the negative aspects of that program and that this framing could have a strong impact on how it was accepted and understood by the public opinion. Analysis also reveals that the governmental initiative was predominantly driven by technological objectives, in particular the access to technology, rather than media literacy objectives.