The work discusses using digital media in the processes of communicating and developing interests by the contemporary Polish and Korean youth. The youth’s typical behaviour in cyberspace is described together with an interpretation of their behaviour on the basis of selected theories of influence of the mass media on viewers and listeners.

Through a qualitative research carried out in South-East Italy with twelve Unaccompanied and Separated Children (UASC) this paper attempts to explore their relation with the Internet and digital media. Findings reveal that digital tools facilitate communication and socialization and allow UASC to maintain relationships with social networks in their countries of origin as well as expand their networks in the country of residence within the migrant community. Digital media enhance access to information and leisure activities. Even if UASC recognize some risks of being online similar to those European adolescents face, it emerges that overall the Internet and digital media contribute to their wellbeing. They have the power to boost resilience vis-à-vis the challenges UASC face in their lives: being alone, in a new country, often institutionalized and without the support of a trustworthy adult figure.

Mass media, and especially digital media, have become an important tool of literacy and have increased their use in classrooms for educational purposes. This is of great interest in scientific literacy and Brossard and Shanahan (2006) developed an instrument to evaluate the understanding of scientific terms and basic science concepts. In this quantitative study we analyse the relationship between Spanish digital mass media and scientific literacy in pre-service primary teachers (N = 189). Results showed that these university students have a term knowledge level lower than the one found by Brossard and Shanahan in the USA. On the other hand, conceptual knowledge was not correlated at all to the term frequency in the Spanish digital newspapers considered. The conclusions suggest that participants do not use digital newspapers to improve their science education so a change in students’ use of those digital media from ludic to educational purposes is needed.

The rapid pace of digital media development implies social and cultural changes. The role of the school is to prepare the human being for the world dominated by these changes. Education 4.0 is one of the concepts for the comprehensive development of the human being. The first part of the article presents the chronology of changes in education in relation to the evolving digital media. Hence, the source of the changes and the subsequent stages of the concept from Education 1.0 to Education 3.0 are described. The second part of the article describes Education 4.0 and its components, the implementation of which in the learning and teaching process is a challenge for the contemporary school. The components described include: -Internet of Things, -the Cloud Computing, -Big Data analytics, -Autonomous Process Organisation, -Augmented Reality, -Horizontal and Vertical Integration, -Advanced Robots and Co-robots. The practical considerations on Education 4.0 follow from the reflections presented by a primary school headmaster who is also an academic staffmember.

Based on an analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data collected in 2018 from the Žilina region in Slovakia, this paper intends to examine the relationship between parental mediation and parental digital media competence within households of children aged three to eight. Parent participants were recruited through schools that reflect the geographic representation of the entire region. In addition to 517 surveys, six onsite interviews with parents and observations of children interacting with digital media were collected. The research findings show that almost 50% of the children studied have access to tablets and laptops. The use of these digital devices increases with age. Qualitative data found that age and other contextual factors played a crucial role in the type of parental mediation implemented at home while quantitative data showed a significant positive correlation between parent’s digital media competence and parental mediation behaviors such as enabling mediation, technical mediation, and monitoring.

Nowadays, the concept of digital media, is nothing new. The article refers to the conditions of legal change implied by the vast progress and revolutionary digital transformation that has taken place when the media, which are an integral part of the communication process, have entered the realm of image culture, a sphere where they obliterate traditional modes of communication, creating a new sphere of influence, without a clear separation between the sender and the receiver. Hence, digital content has become the basis for the construction of a new system of axiology, so relevant in terms of constitutional values.

This article examines changes in Polish local press at the turn of the second and the third decade of the 21st Century, directly or indirectly related to the coronavirus pandemic. For years, statistics have been showing declining sales of printed press. This is mainly the case of the general-interest newspapers – national, regional, and local alike. Internet media platforms are increasingly important and often take over the role of the leading local media. Due to their limited reach, local publishers felt the losses from reduced advertising revenue and copy sales even more acutely than national publishers. Local press and small publishing teams struggled to cope with the impact of the pandemic and demand for digitization. So, what will the local press look like in the following years? How will the pandemic change the face of the local press? This study addresses these issues based on findings from desk research, case studies, and content analysis of relevant media. The result of the research is the confirmation of changes in the field of local communication, especially in its channels. The printed press arouses less and less interest among recipients and ceases to function as the fourth estate.