Abstract: This study investigates the development of media culture (MC), which
serves as an essential pillar within the framework of higher education. The objective is to
characterize MC in university students specializing in physical activity and health. A random
sampling of participants was combined with the Bootstrap method, resulting in a final sample of 300
students across first to fourth academic years, including male and female students aged 18 to 21
years. Peer observations were conducted on educational activities that incorporated the use of ICT,
and the variables of interest related to MC were recorded using a purpose-built observation guide.
The theoretical analysis identified three dimensions aligned with the observation guide:
communicative expressiveness, holistic interpretation, and logical achievement of hypermedia
content, processes justified by the emergence of hypermedia as a new textual form. Comparisons
across academic years for each dimension using the Mann-Whitney test revealed significant
differences in all paired comparisons, with the greatest effect sizes observed between extreme
academic years (1st vs. 4th and 2nd vs. 4th), favoring the development of MC. Robust regression
analysis and comparisons of performance results (insufficient vs. adequate) showed a favorable shift
in MC learning during the 3rd academic year.
keywords: education, Media culture, interpretation, expressiveness.
CARACTERIZACIÓN DE LA CULTURA MEDIÁTICA EN ESTUDIANTES UNIVERSITARIOS DEL
PERFIL DE LA ACTIVIDAD FÍSICA Y LA SALUD
Resumen: El presente estudio tiene como objeto de investigación la formación de la
cultura mediática (CM), por constituir esta un pilar esencial en los marcos de la educación
superior, en consecuencia, se plantea como objetivo caracterizar la CM en estudiantes universitarios
del perfil de la actividad física y la salud. Para llevar a cabo la investigación se realizó una
selección aleatoria de participantes que se combinó con el método de Bootstrap para conseguir una
muestra final de 300 estudiantes de primero a cuarto curso académico, incluyendo hombres y mujeres,
de 18 a 21 años de edad. Se les realizó una observación por pares a actividades docentes que
incluían el uso de las TIC y se registraron las variables de interés de la CM incluidas en una guía
de observación para este propósito. El análisis teórico aporto tres dimensiones en correspondencia
con la guía de observación: expresividad comunicativa, interpretación holística y consecución lógica
del contenido hipermedia; procesos que se justifican por la aparición de un nuevo texto, el
hipermedia. El contraste entre los cursos para cada una de las dimensiones, empleando la prueba de
Mann-Whitney mostró diferencias significativas en todos los pares comparados, hallándose mayor
magnitud del efecto entre los cursos extremos (1 vs 4) y (2 vs) a favor del desarrollo de la CM. El
análisis de regresión robusta y un contraste de comparación de resultados (insuficientes vs bien)
mostraron que en el 3er curso se producía un cambio favorable del aprendizaje de la CM.
Palabras clave: formación, cultura mediática, interpretación, expresividad.
Introduction
The Cuban University, in its historical development, shows a continuous improvement of its substantive
processes in response to the changes occurred in the national and international environment and,
consequently, Pedagogy and Didactics of this educational level are developed as a theoretical corpus to
objectively direct the training of professionals, with pertinently configured modes of action, in
correspondence with the complex and dynamic social context marked by globalization in which contemporary
man coexists.
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), in the referred scenario, constitute an educational
support of global scope, bearers of new forms of communicative expressions, which transform the teaching
environment by providing new mediations to represent didactic entities that legitimize the apprehension
of socio-cultural instances.
In the formative processes, the irruption of a new communicational architecture marked by interactivity
and the integration of symbols of different sensorial and documentary nature, resulting in complex
textual constructions, is evident.
The above confirms that it is not enough for the student to have the skills to operate information
technologies, but that it is necessary to incorporate new knowledge, referring to how to sequence and
interact rationally with the media content to appropriate the didactic information, i.e., a media
culture is required that consequently favors the training of the professional and his or her
development.
Contemporary universities pay special attention to media culture as a form of social awareness that
enables students, from their worldview, to assume a critical and selective attitude towards the system
of codes that move the discourses of learning environments, from different cultural backgrounds.
Educational organizations in different territorial locations see the development of media culture as an
immediate need to be solved, and direct their research in this direction, as shown in the scientific
works of the following authors: Dongo-Mejía et al. (2022), Hernando-Gómez et al.
(2022), Pérez (2019), Gómez-García et al. (2020), Cabrera (2017), González
(2016), Instituto Nacional para la Educación Superior en Latinoamérica y el Caribe
(2010), Montero (2006), Cátedra Unesco de Comunicación (2001) and Gómez (2000) among
others.
The scientific productions of Ramasubramanian et al. (2020) show that the effects of media
culture transcend the critical apprehension of the social and cultural reality expressed in the media,
and are projected to the conditioning of the new forms of social relations in which the individual must
coexist for his integral development, that is to say, these conditions express new modes of interaction
with communicational support and whose management is the responsibility of the subject in his daily
"coexistence".
The aforementioned has caused several researchers in Sociology, Semiotics and Pedagogy to agree in
promoting, in the field of education, the search for new theories, methods and strategies that favor the
construction of the media education of the professional. Consequently, the European Union, taking on
board these considerations of the experts, suggests including media education as a subject in the
curricula, which is stated in European and American publications, among which we find: Yazon et al.
(2019), Law et al. (2018), Pérez Tornero (2010) and Elpaís.com (2008). In accordance with
this position, UNESCO, in several of its educational guidelines -Mateus et al. (2022), Alcolea-Díaz
et al. (2020), UNESCO (2009) and Cátedra UNESCO de comunicación (2009)- also establishes such
intentionality supported by solid practical and epistemological arguments.
The guiding documents of higher education in Cuba, which regulate the design and implementation of study
plans in its different stages - Ministerio de Educación Superior. Cuba (2022), Artola Pimentel
et al. (2019), MES (2003) and (Álvarez de Zayas, 1988), declare with incremental emphasis,
implicitly in the former and explicitly in the latter, the need for the construction of media culture.
The educational praxis of the university, in its contextual singularity, has promoted the insertion of
Information and Communication Technologies in the different professional profiles for more than three
decades. Today this practice, based on media culture, is essential in the training of professionals.
Didactics, throughout this period, has gone through epistemological steps of ascent to perfect this
knowledge and has knotted factual reasons that elevate it to a generalized social need. However, the
theoretical foundations and the degree of mastery of the media culture related to these technologies
have not been studied in sufficient depth.
For this reason, the present study aims to characterize from a holistic approach the media culture
in the university context of Granma province in Cuba.
The following two specific objectives are derived from the general objective.
To analyze, from a theoretical approach, the process of formation of media culture in the university
context.
To empirically diagnose the current state of the level of development of media culture in the
university context.
Due to the nature of the objectives, the study is empirical-theoretical and is classified as
cross-sectional, observational and descriptive.
Theoretical Analysis of the Media Culture Formation Process in the University
Context
The present epigraph responds to the first specific objective, it is focused on revealing the theoretical
references that support the methodological and empirical approach to Media Culture, as the main
theoretical contribution it is proposed to provide a redefinition of the concept and its
dimensions.
Method
The Dialectical Hermeneutic Method was used to understand the accumulated theoretical bases of
Media Culture, to explain the new relationships between its theoretical constituents in the
contemporary conditions of socio-technological development and, as a result of the
interpretation, to provide a synthesis definition of the existing perspectives adjusted to
contemporaneity.
Results
Culture is a category whose presence is becoming more and more frequent in the works of Pedagogy and
Didactics. Specialists in these branches of knowledge pay special attention to this category because of
what it represents for the processes under study in these sciences.
This concept has been approached by different sciences such as Philosophy, Sociology, Psychology,
Aesthetics, Linguistics, Anthropology and Semiotics, among others, each one of which has given it
meaning from its theoretical referents at different moments of the social historical evolution, which
favors a more complete and contextualized elaboration of the referred category. Such contributions have
become solid references that complement the theoretical vision of culture as an essential element in the
formative process of higher education and make possible its singularized completeness in this domain of
social activity and condition new milestones in its historical development (Macías Reyes et al., 2010;
Universidad de Almería, 2010).
Learning within the framework of culture is understood as a dichotomous process,
that is, it presents two modes of execution: the first, informal, when it is developed spontaneously,
arising from the social subjects themselves due to their needs and interests, and the second is
formalized, with the intervention of institutions that regulate and manage the process, as expressed
by Heersmink (2023).
Culture is concretized in the social interaction of the subjects, since it is supported by learning;
therefore, it is inherent in the communicative activity from which the subjects, by exchanging their
ideas in the form of messages, transform each other and in turn contribute to the development of culture
as a social product. From this assumption, communication is assumed to be an essential process for
culture, considered as a form of social consciousness (Echenique, 2023; Marcuse, 1967).
The research of Montoya Rivera (2005) formalizes this category, for the formative context, by
framing it in three spheres: accumulated results, constant creations, and projects and goals, which
gives it a dialectical and didactic nuance.
In the referred study, from this consideration, human activity is redefined as a whole constituted by the
dialectic relations between the transforming activity and the cognitive one, dynamized and synthesized
by the valuative activity and mediation.
Based on the above references, in this research, culture is understood as:
A totality of complex character configured by the human transforming capacity in relation to human
activity and its results, routed by the need and freedom possessed by the subjects in their material and
spiritual realizations, which are expressed in the continuous process of individual and social
self-development on the basis of apprehension and communication in which the contextual
and the universal are integrated in a specific historical stage (Pérez Lozada, 2011, p.13).
Communication, in this context (Figure 1), becomes a form of mediation, which allows us to penetrate the
interstices of phenomena to find their essence, since it not only exists between subjects, but also
occurs as an internal process of the subject (Vygotsky, 1981).
When the theses of the Human and Cultural University, from Fuentes González (2008), are incorporated
into the training process, then substantial transformations are generated in its design and projection,
in the dynamics, in the evaluation and in the results that as praxis confirm the theory. Such a position
implies recognizing that university education is a process that develops human capacities, in which man
must be seen as the center, where he acquires an eminently active role that leads him to "prepare
himself throughout his life for life". It then suggests a level of greater concreteness of the training
process and the adoption of new methods in correspondence with the theoretical corpus, to confer the
leading role of the professional at each level of systematicity foreseen with the pertinent mechanisms
of regulation and correction.
Figure 1
Relationships of the components of culture in the formative framework
From this theoretical platform, professional training is understood as an essentially cultural and
human process, which is conceived in a dialectical relationship with communication by assuming the
assumption of "human activity" and the definition of culture provided, which specifies that it contains
communication at its core of development (Alsina et al., 2014; Fuentes González, 2010).
This advance in the resignification of the concept of professional training associated with communication
is the result of the emergence of new technological communication platforms that transform the
traditional forms of human communication, where texts of different types appear, establishing multiple
links with other texts as transitional routes between them, and the participation of the social subject
as the protagonist of the communicative act emerges through channels that increasingly provide higher
quality to the communicative forms and contents.
These new qualities of communication based on ICT make its material carrier acquire a new constitution,
which is why the author identifies it with the name of hypermedia text and defines it as a text made up
of codes of different formats and sensory nature, containing links that emerge from its structure and
that enable relational polymorphism with other texts, media objects and subjects, configuring the
gnoseological content as a whole from the relationships that are established between the nodes of
communicational information.
Thus, the practices of -reading and reconstruction- have been addressed in different works, among whose
authors are Ancízar Narváez (2021), Pérez Tornero (2010) and Orozco Gómez (2001), who agree in
referring to them under the name of media culture, pointing to the need for their intentional formation.
This particular culture, by consensus of those who research it, is accepted as an indispensable resource
for the critical understanding of nature, society and its associated phenomena, which is conducive to
healthy social coexistence and human and professional development. This layer of knowledge is
unanimously considered as a pedestal in the appropriation and development of the rest of the cultures,
to the point that it is recognized as literacy in the knowledge society (Frómeta Quintana,
2017; Ricoy Lorenzo, 2006).
From the perspective of the present research, media culture (MC) is understood as "the integrated
process of communicative practices, supported by Information and Communication Technologies, and its
results, expression of the dialectic relationship between communicative expressiveness,
holistic interpretation and logical consistency of the hypermedia content that
configures, as a whole, a support for continuous human development".
Media training must be understood as a quality, expression of processes and results constituting a
whole, that is, as the activities intentionally aimed at the appropriation of this culture and the
degree to which it has been internalized as awareness in professionals, which conditions the way in
which its professionalizing transforming capacity is expressed and emerges. From this reasoning, both,
media training and professionalizing transforming capacity, are identified as dialectical pairs that
mutually condition each other in their development and that of the professionals in training.
Empirical Diagnosis of the Current State of the Level of Development of Media Culture in the
University Context
Instrument
The
observation guide is used to obtain data for the diagnosis of media culture, the dimensions of which are
explained below:
Holistic interpretation (HI)of the hypermedia text, process through which the
learner identifies the communicative units of each text that participate simultaneously in the
discourse, discovers their meaning, finds the relationships between them, totalizing, through successive
synthesized reconstructions, a meaning in correspondence with their sociocultural referents.
Communicative expressiveness (CE) is the process by which thought, with intentionality, is
translated into a symbolic system that materializes in multiple texts of different nature,
interconnected as a coherent whole intended for interaction with other subjects and the support of one's
own thought, whose identity emerges from the content-form link mediated by morality.
Logical sequentiality of content (LC) refers to the organized and conscious succession of
technological actions, of different levels of complexity, performed by a subject with the elements of a
digital communication device or tool to create, express or interact effectively with hypermedia texts.
Method
Participants
The study
population was selected from the context of the University province of Granma Province in Cuba, from the
profiles of physical activity and health, from the first year to the fourth year. The form of selection
was stratified random to achieve a balance among the students of the different courses that participated
and among the sex denominations so that it was possible to carry out statistical processing in
accordance with the objectives. The sample was initially made up of 30 students, and with the Bootstrap
re-sampling process, a total of 300 subjects were finally reached to carry out the study.
Sampling Instrument
The observation guide of Pérez Lozada (2011), designed to explore the level of development of Media
Culture in university students, configured from the constructs explained above, was used:
Communicative expressiveness,Interpretation of the hypermedia text and Logical
sequentiality of the content, structured in nine observation descriptors that are rated on a
5-level scale, i.e., scores from 1 to 5.
Procedure
Prior to conducting the observation, the subjects were informed of the purpose of the exercise, making it
clear that it was a voluntary and completely anonymous act, since no data would be recorded that would
serve as a link to identify the participants. In this way, the observation was carried out by two
teachers who independently recorded the observed activity data. To mitigate the effects associated with
observation bias, strategies were established to reach consensus on discordant scores between observers
on the same item.
Statistical Analysis
The data were recorded in Microsoft Excel and a validation process was performed to correct out-of-range
and null data. The R language, using RStudio V20224.09.0 -build 375-, was used to complete the sample by
means of a Bootstrap algorithm (with the "boot" library), the Kolmogórov-Smirnov tests to
verify normality, the Mann-Whitney test for the comparison of measurements, the generation of graphs
(tidyverse and ggplot2 libraries), the Z test for the comparison of proportions, and the Z test for the
comparison of proportions.
Results
General Characteristics of the Sample
Table 1 presents the main demographic characteristics of the sample, designed to explore variations in
media literacy constructs according to educational level, i.e., academic years (1st to 4th). In
addition, it includes the distribution by sex and age levels of the participants (18-23 years),
providing a frame of reference for interpreting the results derived from the statistical analysis.
Table 1
Descriptive variables of the study sample
variables
levels
N
%
Average E
DE
EN
Sex
Woman
139
46,33
20,68
2,297
0,195
Man
161
53,67
20,74
1,719
0,136
Course
1
71
23,67
18,92
1,565
0,186
2
74
24,67
19,97
1,158
0,135
3
83
27,67
21,59
0,733
0,080
4
72
24,00
22,5
0,839
0,099
Total
300
20,78
1,760
0,102
Age
18
50
16,70
19
30
10,00
20
48
16,00
21
47
15,60
22
59
19,70
23
66
22,00
Note. N: number of cases, ME: mean age, SD: standard deviation, SE: standard error
The selected sample exhibits a balance in the levels corresponding to each of its constituent variables:
sex, academic year and age, which allows for the appropriate application of the statistical analysis
tests required by the objectives of the study.
Compaison Between Dimensions in Each Academic Year
The assumptions of normality of the dimensions EC, HI, CL by strata -academic courses- are checked, given
that the sample in each stratum of the variables is greater than 30, the Kolmogórov-Smirnov normality
test is used, in all cases values of p<0.05 were obtained, so it is concluded that the sample
does not have a normal distribution, consequently, a non-parametric statistical method is selected, the
Mann-Whitney test to perform the comparisons.
A comparison of the differences in measures of the dimensions, including media culture, by academic
courses was performed as shown in Table 2.
The referred table shows for each course (1st, 2nd, 3rd and
4th) the pairwise comparison of the dimensions (EC vs IH, IH vs CL, CL vs EC), in all cases
values of p>0.005 were obtained (between 0.200 and 0.994), which means that no significant
difference was found between the measures of the dimensions compared, according to the Mann-Whitney
test.
Table 2
Comparison of dimensions by course
Year
DIM
N
Median
IQR
U
p-value
r
EC
EC
71
1,67
1,33-2,33
2615,5
0,699
0,032
IH
1,50
1,25-2,50
IH
71
1,50
1,25-2,50
2329,5
0,432
0,066
CL
1,50
1,25-2,50
CL
71
1,50
1,25-2,50
2619,5
0,687
0,034
EC
1,67
1,33-2,33
IH
EC
74
2,25
1,83-2,63
2788,5
0,847
0,016
IH
2,25
1,56-2,50
IH
74
2,25
1,56-2,50
2548
0,464
0,06
CL
2,25
1,75-2,75
CL
74
2,25
1,75-2,75
2887
0,568
0,047
EC
2,25
1,83-2,63
EC
EC
83
3,00
2,33-3,33
3130,5
0,309
0,079
IH
3,00
2,38-3,50
IH
83
3,00
2,38-3,50
3447,5
0,994
0,001
CL
3,00
2,25-3,50
CL
83
3,00
2,25-3,50
3703,5
0,402
0,065
EC
3,00
2,33-3,33
Note. Dim: dimensions, N: number of cases, IQR: quartile range 25-75, U: Mann-Whitney
statistic, r: effect size.
Comparison Between Academic Years in Each Dimension
The assumptions of normality of the dimensions in each of the academic years (1st,
2nd, 3rd and 4th) are checked
the Kolmogórov-Smirnov normality test was used, given that the sample in each stratum of the variables is
greater than 30. In all cases, values of p<0.05 were obtained, so it is concluded that the
sample does not have a normal distribution; consequently, a non-parametric statistical method, the
Mann-Whitney test, was selected for comparisons.
EC Dimension
Figure 2
Median and interquartile ranges of CD
Figure 2 illustrates the median and interquartile ranges (Q1-Q3) of the CE dimension by academic years.
It is observed that academic year 1 presented the highest median (4.17), while academic year 1 had the
lowest median (1.50). These differences are consistent in all pairwise comparisons, as confirmed by
statistical analyses. In courses 1 and 4 there is a shift of the median concentration towards Q1.
The results of the pairwise comparisons are presented in Table 1. All pairs of courses showed
statistically significant differences (p<0.001). This indicates that CE distributions
differ among all courses. Effect sizes (r) ranged from moderate to large, with distinctive values
in pairs: Course 1 vs Course 4 (r=0,791) and Course 2 vs Course 4(r=0.767).
IC Dimension
Figure 3
Median and interquartile ranges of CD
Figure 3 illustrates the median and interquartile ranges (Q1-Q3) of the CE dimension by academic years.
It is observed that the 4th academic year presented the highest median (4.00), while the
1st academic year had the lowest median (1.50). These differences are consistent in all
pairwise comparisons, as confirmed by statistical analyses. In courses 1 and 4 there is a shift of the
median concentration towards Q1 and Q3, respectively.
Table 4
Comparison of academic courses in EC
Dimension
Comparison
U
p-value
r
rc
IH
Course 1 vs Course 2
1748,00
***
0,291
Small
Course 1 vs Course 3
896,00
***
0,602
Grande
Course 1 vs Course 4
488,00
***
0,703
Grande
Course 2 vs Course 3
1463,00
***
0,454
Moderate
Course 2 vs Course 4
638,00
***
0,662
Grande
Course 3 vs Course 4
1889,00
***
0,319
Moderate
Note. u: Man Whitney statistic, r: effect size, rc: qualitative coding of effect size.
The results of the pairwise comparisons are presented in Table 4. All pairs of courses showed
statistically significant differences (p<0.001). This indicates that CE distributions
differ among all courses. Effect sizes (r) ranged from small to large, with distinctive values
standing out in pairs: Course 1 vs Course 4 (r=0,703) and Course 2 vs Course 4(r=0.662).
IC Dimension
Figure 4
Median and interquartile ranges of CL
Figure 4 illustrates the median and interquartile ranges (Q1-Q3) of the CE dimension by academic years.
It can be seen that the 4th academic year presented the highest median (4.25), while the
1st academic year had the lowest (1.25). These differences are consistent in all pairwise
comparisons, as confirmed by statistical analyses. In courses 1 and 4 there is a shift of the median
concentration towards Q1 and Q3 respectively.
Table 5
Comparison of academic courses in CL
Dimension
Comparison
U
p
r
rc
CL
Course 1 vs Course 2
1732,50
***
0,295
Small
Course 1 vs Course 3
996,50
***
0,572
Grande
Course 1 vs Course 4
493,00
***
0,699
Grande
Course 2 vs Course 3
1722,00
***
0,380
Moderate
Course 2 vs Course 4
760,50
***
0,619
Grande
Course 3 vs Course 4
1833,50
***
0,334
Moderate
Note. u: Man Whitney statistic, ***: p<0.001 r: effect size, rc: qualitative coding of
effect size.
The results of the pairwise comparisons are presented in Table 5. All pairs of courses showed
statistically significant differences (p<0.001). This indicates that CL distributions
differ across courses. Effect sizes (r) ranged from small to large, with distinctive values
standing out in pairs: Course 1 vs Course 4 (r=0,699) and Course 2 vs Course 4(r=0.619).
Comparison of Media Culture Measures by Academic Year
We compared the measures of Media Culture, which integrates the values of EC, HI and CL, between men and
women in the academic years (1, 2, 3 and 4) using the Mann-Whitney test because the samples violate the
assumption of normality (p<0.05) according to the Kolmogórov-Smirnov test.
Figure 5
Medians of media culture by academic year according to sex
Paired medians (Female, Male) were obtained by year: 1st (2.50 vs 2.67), 2nd (2.50 vs 25), 3rd (2.75,259)
and 4th (2.57 vs 2.64) with the respective interquartile ranges as shown in Figure 5. The Mann-Whitney
test provided U-values (10068-11665) and p-values (0.535-0.133), since p>0.05 in
all cases indicates that there is not enough statistical evidence to conclude that there are significant
differences between the medians of men and women, so it is assumed that the medians of women are equal
to those of men.
Association Between Media Literacy and Academic Courses
Given that the Kolmogórov-Smirnov test, in the verification of the normality of the data provided values
of p<0.05, then it is assumed that the data do not have a normal distribution. In this
situation, robust linear regression methods are chosen to perform a regression analysis, specifically,
the MM-estimators due to their excellent response to outliers and non-normal
distributions. (Maronna et al., 2019; Smucler, 2016)
In this analysis, CM was chosen as the dependent variable, which was calculated in each case according to
the dimensions EC, IH and CL; and academic year was taken as the predictor variable.
Using the MM-estimator algorithm method, it presented a robust R² of 0.7007, indicating that the model
explains approximately 70.07% of the variation of CM, The adjusted R² was 0.6997, providing a
consistent fit. The quality of the fit was assessed by the residual robust standard error, which was
0.4291, indicating good accuracy in the model predictions. Information on the model's predictor
variables is included in Table 6.
Table 6
Model regression coefficients
Estimator
EE
p
Interception
1.14301
0.05952
***
Course
0.60600
0.02320
***
Note. EE: standard error, ***: p<0.001
General Condition of the CM
In the general study of the state of development of MC, the cut-off points are established according to
the Cuban evaluation system, which establishes the following quantitative-qualitative coding:
Excellent (5 points), Good (4 points), Pass (3 points), Fail (2 points) (MES. Cuba, 2022).
Figure 6
Behavior of the MC by academic years
Note. ***: pvalue < 0.001
When comparing the proportions (insufficient vs. well) using a Z-test, the count by course, showed
significant differences in the MC in the 1st course (0 vs. 71, z=14.01,
p < 0.001) in favor of the insufficient count, as well as in the 2nd course (4
vs. 70, z= 12.58, p < 0.0001); however, in the 3rd course the values were
similar without significant differences in the count (41 vs. 42) and in the 4thcourse
the differences were significant in favor of the Well status. (8 vs 64, z=-10,92,
p<0.001).
Discussion and Conclusions
This study analyzed, from a theoretical approach, the process of formation of media culture in the
university context, providing a system of pedagogical categories and the redefinition of the concept of
media culture with its constituent dimensions. In addition, an empirical diagnosis of the current
state of the level of development of media culture in the university context was carried out, which
revealed insufficiencies in its development in the first three courses, and in the fourth course,
results were recorded that are located in the lowest levels of the satisfactory condition. Thus it is
characterized, from a holistic approach -theoretical, multidimensional and empirical-, the media
culture in the sampled university context of Granma province in Cuba, revealing that the theoretical
dimensions -EC, IH- in their empirical concretion, require immediate attention.
The theoretical approach was based on the contextualization of the category of culture in the framework
of higher education, revealing the components that in their interrelation configure it as a totality,
highlighting the essential role of communication as a dynamic nucleus of its existence in relation to
the process of apprehension. This concept describes the complex web of relationships that link the
different forms of human activity with the communicative activity sustained by the complex ecosystem of
information and communication technologies that increasingly permeates the social fabric. In the
university training process, understood as a cultural process, media culture is identified as a material
support for learning and for human development, an expression of the relationship between three
processes: communicative expressiveness, holistic interpretation and logical consecutivity of hypermedia
content; these processes operate on the hypermedia text, a new type of text that involves new forms of
writing, reading and access, of special interest for higher education pedagogy.
The empirical diagnosis was carried out on university students in the profile of physical activity and
health, in a cross-sectional sample taken from students from the first to the fourth year of university.
The comparison between the dimensions (EC, IH and CL) of media culture in each course (1,2,3 and 4) did
not provide significant differences in the measures, in any case (Table 2), which shows that in the
academic courses the students' performance is similar in the dimensions, according to the median. These
results and the references obtained from the literature consulted suggest that the formation process of
media culture, from its components, is homogeneous and spontaneous, i.e., there are no subjects whose
objectives explicitly specify the development of media culture, although it is stated as an
intentionality (MES. Cuba, 2014).
On the other hand, performance was compared between years (1,2,3 and 4) for each of the dimensions (EC,
HI and CL), as shown in Figures 2, 4 and 4, based on the contrast of the courses (1 vs 2, 1 vs 3, 1 vs
4, 2 vs 3, 2 vs 4, 3 vs), significant statistical differences were found between each of the cases
studied (Tables 3, 4 and 5), finding the largest positive effect size in the comparisons (1 vs 4 and 2
vs 4). In light of the training process, the evidence suggests that the appropriation of media
culture is favored with the transit of the courses, due to the indirect impact of the tasks oriented to
students whose solution is carried out using ICT (MES. Cuba, 2022).
Although statistical tests do not show the development of CL of hypermedia content above the other
processes (EC and IH), descriptive data do reveal it, other research also confirms it, since this
process has a predominantly technological genesis, which are part of the favorite activities of the
subjects of these ages, the constant use of ICT and the motivation to handle it better (Gómez
Miguel et al., 2022; Melendro Estefanía et al., 2016).
The comparison of the development of MC by sex in each school year showed no significant differences
between men and women, which suggests that there is homogeneity between them, as can be seen in Figure
5.
The linear regression, according to Table 6, provided the following prediction model CM=
0.606*Course+1.14301, in this case studied that defines the passing grade from 3 points (CM=3), it is
convenient to know from which course it is obtained, according to the sampled data. To do so, the
equation Course=(CM-1.14301) /0.606 is cleared, leaving the equation Course=(CM-1.14301) /0.606; when
substituting CM in this equation, a value of 3.06 is obtained. Which means that the CM performance is
satisfactory from the 3rd course onwards.
The comparison of the proportions of CM in students, coded in two states: insufficient and well, as a way
to understand the general state of this construct, according to Figure 6, in the form of a scissors,
reveals that there is a tendency for students to move from the "insufficient" state to the "well" state
as they progress through the academic courses.
According to the data obtained, it is suggested to develop pedagogical interventions that allow students,
from the first years, to reach higher levels in CM, which serves as a support for learning the rest of
the subjects. It also highlights the need to develop transversal learning strategies throughout the
career to ensure the performance of CM from transdisciplinary approaches, due to its relationship with
critical thinking, problem solving and professional culture.
Strengths and Limitations
The positive aspects of the present study are: a) the theoretical approach to media culture it favors, by
providing an updated reconceptualization in contemporary social and technological frameworks and b) it
provides an empirical diagnosis, detailed by dimensions, of the level of development of media culture in
students of significant pedagogical usefulness, which, being carried out in R language, can be
immediately applied to another data matrix.
However, limitations must be overcome, such as: a) the size of the sample, in order to make statistical
inferences towards other similar contexts and b) in the theoretical order, the concept of media culture
must be completed by incorporating a dimension of an ethical nature.
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