Latinytė, Rūta

Media literacy is rich and multifaceted (Rosenbaum et a t, 2008). Existing literature underscores the importance of promoting media literacy. Media literacy education aims to help young people who are active media consumers improve their interpreting and judging skills and become independent media producers, as well as develop a critical understanding and active participation (Aydemir, Demirkan, 2021). The research attempts to provide documentation of implementing media literacy education in one university community. It focuses on presenting quantitative and qualitative data to gain insights into how particular instructional practices and curricula may help develop students' media literacy comprehension. The case study of implementing media literacy education at a local setting (university) showed that students were highly satisfied with the learning experience. Research results showed that most students could recommend including media literacy subjects in other study programs, defined many gained skills, positively evaluated the topics and recognized the importance of media literacy education.

Using the tools of phenomenological anthropology and the means of research into everyday practices, the article discusses contemporary gift-giving practices, focusing on the special cases of gift giving, revealed through the narratives of respondents who were interviewed for the research conducted in Lithuania – a country on the borders of Western, Eastern, and Northern Europe. The analyzed special cases are self-gifts – the ones purchased by the respondents and originally called “a gift to myself” by them, whereas they emphasize that it was not an ordinary purchase but certainly a gift. This phenomenon is analyzed through a deeper insight into three cases: excerpts of qualitative unstructured interviews conducted for the research and a description of the author’s personal experience. In this article, they are presented along with the comments of the author as is characteristic of the phenomenological research. The analysis seeks to reveal how the experiences with self-gifts occur, acquire meaning and place in memory, and how this affects a person’s relationship with themselves and those around them. Although the self-gifting practice sounds like a paradox, it exists in the language and everyday practices, so this analysis aims to look for a deeper message encoded behind the words of individual stories.

Visuomenės apklausos įvairiose šalyse, tarp jų ir Lietuvoje, liudija, kad Kalėdos– intensyviausias dovanų teikimo metas. Šių dovanų teikimo centre atsiduria patys artimiausi šeimos nariai – tėvai apdovanoja vaikus, o šie, jau užaugę, patys perima dovanojančiojo vaidmenį. Fenomenologinėje antropologijoje atliekami kasdienių praktikų tyrimai leido į šį plačiai žinomą paprotį pažvelgti per asmeninių pasakojimų vaizdinius. Siekiant atskleisti, kaip kuriamas ypatingas dovanojančiojo ir gavėjo ryšys, buvo analizuojami individualūs patyrimai, užfiksuoti kaip nestruktūruoti interviu su pateikėjais, ir pačios autorės prisiminimai. Pastebėta, kaip, bėgant metams, pasikeičia dovaną duodančiojo ir gaunančiojo vaidmenys, tampantys ne tik inversiniai, bet ir asimetriniai – pareiga atsilyginti už gautas dovanas perkelia šio veiksmo intenciją ateinančioms kartoms. Kalėdų kontekste ypatinga svarba tenka ir dedamų pastangų intensyvumui, tarp jų – miego ir bemiegių naktų sąryšiui. Tyrimas leido pažvelgti į dar vieną aspektą – per dovaną, kaip nekalbinę komunikacijos formą, artimiesiems pavyksta susikalbėti – be žodžių, be atskiro reflektavimo, bet per patiriamą žinojimą, fenomenologijoje vadinamą gyvenama patirtimi (angl. lived experience).