It was a huge pleasure to participate in the #mlmatters conference this week. My thanks to Andy Demeulenaere and the Mediawijs team for the brilliant curation and organisation.
In my role working with the EMIL network, where media regulators work together on media literacy, I was asked to share my three key observations from the #mlmatters conference that I and my EPRA and Ofcom colleagues participated in this week. This is what I took out from the sessions I attended, and the many conversations with experts and practitioners that I had during the conference.
Firstly, there is an emerging sense of focus among media literacy actors, and it’s characterised by breadth and depth. Depth in terms of focusing on concrete groups where interventions will have the most impact (eg research shows us which groups spread misinformation); and seeing the greatest impact from peer-to-peer interaction with trusted actors at the community level. And breadth because media literacy is a critical part of wider policy thinking that promotes citizenship and human dignity, and because of the need to evaluate impact based on broad public interest outcomes.
Secondly, collaboration is key to developing a systemic approach to policy in this field. Media Literacy involves multiple actors each playing a part based on their own particular expertise and unique reach. This means that interaction, interdependence and interplay between these actors is essential to a systemic approach, and networks are the bridge to that approach, allowing disparate actors to unite around a common vision and new ideas to form.
And finally, online platforms and tech companies have a key role to play, and the media literacy community is rich with ideas of how they can support this work better. We need to think about how to incentivise them to take on some of these ideas, including through the implementation of new regulations such as the DSA.
Many others conclusions were mentioned, but I hope these stimulate your thoughts.
Schönen Feierabend!
Notary, Government of India
2mo🙏