Purpose/objective For adults – be they individuals, citizens, or employees – media competence constitutes a fundamental competence within the context of the society of knowledge. In order to plan offers for the promotion of media competence among adults, the addressees´ subjective concepts of media literacy should be taken into consideration in addition to scientific theories. Subjective concepts are pedagogically relevant because adults differ in their understanding of the terms “media competence” and “media critique” in both their scientific-theoretical and their pedagogical-practical use. With regard to addressee-orientation, it is necessary to take subjective concepts into consideration because even the term media competence in itself as well as its connotations may show offers for addressees to be (ir)relevant. The contribution discusses subjective concepts of media competence within the context of media-pedagogical adult education (cf. von Hippel 2007); - “within the context”, because media competence constitutes an important concept in media-pedagogical adult education, it is a term that surfaces increasingly in programs of adult education and therefore, the addressees themselves come into contact with the term (cf. von Hippel 2007). Until now, the addressees´ understanding of “media competence” has not been examined. The crucial questions are: In how far has the term “media competence” been popularized? To what extent can subjective concepts of media competence guide actions? How do such concepts emerge? Furthermore, the connection between subjective concepts of media competence, motifs for the use of media, and interest in further education in the field of media is analyzed. Finally, the relevance of subjective concepts of media competence for the planning of the media-pedagogical practice in adult education as well as for media-pedagogical research is pointed out. Theoretical framework The formation of theories concerning the term media competence has progressed quite far (cf. among others Baacke 1999; Groeben 2002); there exist a great variety of different concepts. Despite all the differences and distinctive determinations, the concepts mostly concur in that they combine aspects of media analysis, media production, and media selection. The English term “literacy” shows, more clearly than the German term Medienkompetenz (media competence), that the way in which media are dealt with is considered a fourth cultural technique. “Media education (…) is the process of teaching and learning about media; media literacy is the outcome – the knowledge and skills learners acquire. (…) Media education therefore aims to develop both critical understanding and active participation.” (Buckingham 2003, p. 4). Similar to the German-language debate, English publications speak of the “wide diversity of perspectives” and of media literacy as an “expansive and unstable concept (Hobbs 1998, p. 16), as an “umbrella concept” (ibid., p. 27) (for a survey of the concepts cf. Potter 2004). The societal consensus on concrete contents, the operationalization and empirical concretization of media competence, however, still remain a challenge (cf. Livingstone/Thumin 2003; Gapski 2006; Treumann et al. 2002; Neuss 2000). What has been lacking so far is an examination of the phenomenological dimension, in particular, – namely that which non-scientists and thus also addressees of media-pedagogical adult education understand by media competence – i.e., a study of subjective concepts of media competence. Subjective everyday theories are often grounded on a popularization of scientific insights, they include knowledge from experience taken from both primary experiences and collective patterns of interpretation and media information (cf. Siebert 2006, p. 43). The term media competence (Medienkompetenz), in particular, is used quite frequently in German-language media (cf. Gapski 2001).

Research question The study focused on the question of in how far the subjective concepts of media competence correspond with the scientific-pedagogical term and whether they come closer to the normative-media-pedagogical discourse or to the economic-media-technological discourse (cf. also Gapski 2001). Furthermore, it was analyzed whether the subjective concepts are relevant to the active approach to media-pedagogical adult education and what could be their significance for the practice of media-pedagogical adult education. The examination of these subjective concepts aimed at contributing to the development of a theory and at giving pedagogical recommendations in accordance with addressee orientation. Methodology/Research Instruments The study analyzed subjective concepts of media competence by means of questionnaires and problem-centered interviews. Thus, the analysis could draw on 19 interviews lasting about 1.5 hours each and 60 answers given to an open question presented in form of a questionnaire. Through method triangulation (cf. Flick 2004) and a graded procedure, questionnaires and interviews could be interlinked and the results, in the form of patterns and structures, can be considered representative with regard to content. In this, the heterogeneity of the sample survey in accordance with the Grounded Theory method of theoretical sampling (cf. Strauss/Corbin 1996) yielded special insights.

The results show that the subjective concepts correspond in part with the scientific term of media competence which, however, is sometimes given a different accentuation. The subjective concepts of media competence take up aspects of the economic media-technological discourse in the form of technological approaches and aspects of the normative media-pedagogical discourse in the form of media critique. On the level of the citizens, there exists no unified conception of media competence, however, they typically formulate their subjective concepts of media competence according to their motifs for using media and their professional framework. These subjective concepts are changeable through social interaction – e.g., in media-pedagogical adult education. Individuals who shape media, be it as professional media creators or as private persons pursueing their hobby, typically define media competence as the ability to present oneself competently in the media, to organize media in a competent manner. For them, the term media competence describes the media-competent personality. From their point of view, a media-competent person is well educated all-round, has a good pronunciation, is “neutral, objective, critical”. Participants, who employ media in their everyday life as citizens, refer to the technical and critical use and, in particualr, to an individually meaningful use of media. The term media critique is not interpreted in a unified manner, some understand it to mean film critique, others consider it to be a broad scientific term, again others use it as an individual evaluation meant to show whether a medium is suitable for a person and whether it´s useful, thus applying a subjective reduction. The subjective narrowing down of media critique to the individual use of media is an interesting result of the Anglo-American debate (cf. Livingstone 2003), a finding which has for the first time been empirically substantiated for the German debate by the present study. The integration of subjective concepts of media competence in the application of media within educational contexts thus constitutes a challenge for both research and practice. Furthermore, it has implications for the professionalization of media-pedagogical adult education. The demands on teachers grow continuously, the support of lifelong learning requires that they be competent in the field of media, too. Thus it is of crucial importance that some projects aim at the promotion of media competence, of media-didactical and media-pedagogical competence among course tutors (cf. Kraft 2002). However, these projects ought to be accompanied by a stronger orientation towards participants and target groups in media-related courses. As several studies have shown, course tutors often do not have either media-pedagogical or didactical knowledge, they were usually recruited due to their special knowledge in other fields (cf. Meueler 1999, p. 680). Here, an increasing need for inservice training manifests itself (cf. Kade et al. 1999, p. 164). As the present study has shown, there is not only a media-related need for further education in media-didactics, but also in the micro- and macro-didactic planning of media-pedagogical offers in adult education, in order to be able to include in the courses aspects of media critique, in particular, in a target-group-oriented way and by taking into account subjective concepts of media competence. The integration of subjective concepts of media competence represents a stronger orientation towards the addressees and thus to a change from a teacher-oriented to an increasingly learner-oriented adult education.