Digital literacy and poverty: investigating the digital experience of children living at pusat perumahan rakyat (PPR)
The B40 indicates percentages of Malaysia’s lowest income population or the ‘Bottom 40%’. While the Malaysian government is doing its best to include the B40s in all its policies, one of the biggest challenges to this is to ensure that the B40s are abreast with the contemporary demands of digital...
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Centre for Media and Information Warfare Studies, Faculty of Communication and Media Studies, UiTM
2023
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://irep.iium.edu.my/108167/7/108167_Digital%20literacy%20and%20poverty.pdf http://irep.iium.edu.my/108167/ https://jmiw.uitm.edu.my/images/Journal/Vol16No2/Article4.pdf |
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| Institution: | Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia |
| Language: | English |
| Summary: | The B40 indicates percentages of Malaysia’s lowest income population or the ‘Bottom 40%’. While the
Malaysian government is doing its best to include the B40s in all its policies, one of the biggest
challenges to this is to ensure that the B40s are abreast with the contemporary demands of digital
technologies. More specifically, poverty often deprives children of having positive and productive
digital media experiences and skills. These children usually lack access to digital media and are unable
to grasp the potential that comes with digital technologies. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the
children’s current level of digital literacy by studying a segment of the B40 group that is the children
living at the Pusat Perumahan Rakyat (PPR). Using a survey on 308 children living at three PPRs
around the Klang Valley area, this study applied the Digcomp framework for digital competency to
measure the children’s digital competencies. The study found that the children have moderate
informational and operational skills, safety and security skills, communicational skills, and digital
participation. However, they lack in content creation and problem-solving skills. Therefore, the study
proposes that there needs to be more coordinated effort among relevant and responsible authorities
and institutions to push the digital literacy agenda so that it becomes equally, if not more important,
than issues of digital access and ownership. |
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