The audiovisual content downloads among university students

Abstract

This article analyses the phenomenon of downloading audio-visual content –movies and television series– which is habitually practiced by university students via the Internet; their attitudes towards illegal downloads; and the education/training that they have about the legal status of this activity. These issues are a frequent reality but are little discussed in our academic context. Data was obtained from a questionnaire designed ad hoc. This was administered to students enrolled in different university degrees (Audio-visual Communication, Primary Education and Social Education). We believe that these college degrees require ethical and legal training on the issues regarding downloading of content from the web. This education is an urgently needed training for young people who will work in educating and informing the citizens of the 21st century. The study results show that university students habitually consume a high percentage of online content from the audio-visual industry (films and television series). Students have clearly favourable attitudes towards this form of consumption. However, students show little regards to the ethical and legal issues surrounding downloading from the Internet. In addition, they have a very low degree of education and training on these issues. The results suggest the need to implement training programs and to conduct information campaigns to improve their information and digital literacy. El presente trabajo analiza el fenómeno de las descargas de contenidos audiovisuales –películas y series de televisión– que habitualmente practican los universitarios a través de Internet; sus actitudes ante las descargas ilegales y la formación que tienen en relación a la situación legal de las mismas. Estas cuestiones conforman una realidad que aunque a priori parece ser demasiado frecuente, se encuentra todavía muy poco explorada y es escasamente tratada desde una perspectiva científica en nuestro contexto. Los datos se obtuvieron a partir de un cuestionario diseñado ad hoc, administrado a estudiantes de tres Grados universitarios (Comunicación Audiovisual, Educación Primaria y Educación Social), por considerar que se trata de titulaciones en las que un conocimiento de base ético y legal ante las descargas de contenidos en la red es urgente y necesario para unos jóvenes que se están preparando con el propósito de dedicarse a la formación e información de los futuros ciudadanos del siglo XXI. Los resultados del estudio muestran cómo el consumo de contenidos procedentes de la industria audiovisual (televisiva y cinematográfica), es una práctica asentada entre los universitarios, que tienen actitudes claramente favorables hacia ella pero que prestan escasa importancia a cuestiones éticas y legales ante las descargas no legales, además de tener muy baja formación en estas cuestiones. Los resultados sugieren la necesidad de poner en marcha acciones educomunicativas para mejorar sus competencias informacionales y digitales.

Repercussions of plagiarism on University degrees in the virtual context

“…Despite this solid knowledge of what is meant by plagiarism using the Internet, in the study with a national scope carried out by Comas et al (2011), more than 60% of the students state that they put works together with snippets from the Internet without citation, and more than 85% believe that their peers have done the same. Especially in the digital environment, there is a great lack of knowledge deriving from the legislation related to intellectual property and copyright, not only regarding plagiarism but also regarding unauthorized downloading, installation of programs without a licence, and the non-legal copying of digital materials (Duarte-Hueros et al, 2016).…”

“…Finally, there has been recognized the importance of adequate instruction (Gómez Espinosa et al, 2016;Muñoz-Cantero & Espiñeira-Bellón, 2020;Sureda et al, 2009) and collaboration between different agents (Gil Cano et al, 2017). Many repercussions have been addressed: academic, such as disciplinary sanctions; economic, such as avoiding the fair remuneration of authors, and the expense or profitability of anti-plagiarism tools; ethical, such as malpractice with respect to the values of university ethics; legal, such as respecting intellectual property and copyright laws and other national or university legislation and regulations; and social, such as the university's loss of prestige within society, or the contribution to a new culture where other values prevail (Abad-García, 2018; Alonso Arévalo, 2017;Codina, 2020;Duarte-Hueros et al, 2016;Egaña, 2012;Fernández Ramos, 2017;González-Teruel, 2022;Martínez Sala et al, 2019;Temiño, 2022). There has as yet been no holistic study of all these repercussions in the international and national context.…”

Aprendizaje Basado en Proyectos y Elevator Pitch: una innovación metodológica en español como lengua extranjera

“…Ahora bien, los proyectos tienen como meta la solución de un problema (Díaz Barriga, 2006;Duarte-Hueros et al, 2016), planteado como una pregunta, un objetivo de conocimiento o la necesidad de crear un producto (Tobón, 2006). La resolución de ese problema se consigue por medio de un proyecto, entendido como un acto intencional relacionado con la vida real (Kilpatrick, 1929).…”