Media Governance and Industries Lab Blog

By Stephanie Weber

We are living in times where one crisis after another follows and determines the things we talk about, read about, or hear about. Overcrowded healthcare facilities because of Covid-19, droughts in the summer and natural disasters as a result of climate change, and the war in Ukraine – all these issues are currently shaping public discourse, which is predominantly conducted via digital and social media. The Internet has enormously increased the accessibility of information, but at the same time, it has also led to a growing flood of disorganized information.

In the midst of this digital information overload are children and young people, who are being exposed to the Internet more frequently and at an earlier age. In high-income countries, more than 85 percent of 3 to 17-year-olds have access to the Internet in their homes. In order to deal with this flood of information, children and young people must be given the skills they need to verify the information and distinguish between credible and non-credible sources. This can also help create a sense of confidence, especially in times of crisis. 

Media literacy as a panacea against fake news?

Whether man-made climate change or the effect of vaccinations: Especially in times of crisis, opinions polarize, and the danger of misinformation and fake news increases. For example, it seems that in every Twitter timeline, every Facebook comment, and every TikTok video, you can find an expert who shares his or hers own truth. While democracy thrives on public discourse and a well-informed public, it is endangered by fake news and widespread propaganda.

This is one reason why media literacy has been on the agenda of political institutions and actors for years – especially in the fight against fake news. Media literacy initiatives are being promoted to raise public awareness of media messages. Citizens and especially emerging citizens must have access to fact-based, trustworthy and truthful information. Only then can they make well-informed political decisions. Media literacy can be a tool here, as the EU Commission also writes in a recommendation on media literacy (2009): “Democracy depends on the active participation of citizens to the life of their community and media literacy would provide the skills they need to make sense of the daily flow of information disseminated through new communication technologies.”

Media literacy can be helpful against the infodemic, but it is certainly not the whole solution. Rather, the concept of media literacy must be developed further. Also, the political and social dimensions as well as the power relations within the media systems must be taken into account. This is what happens in Critical Media Literacy.

Critical media literacy: more than true or false

Important representatives of Critical Media Literacy are Kellner and Share (2019). According to the two authors, it is no longer sufficient today to assess information purely based on its true content. Rather, they recommend that students understand the context of a piece of information, and seek different sources and perspectives. And they need to ask questions, examining the “relationships between media and audiences, information and power” (Kellner & Share, 2019). Therefore, concepts of media literacy must take an intersectional approach, thinking through aspects of unequal power relations such as class, race, and gender. In doing so, media recipients must ask themselves the following questions:

1. WHO produces information?
   All information is created by individuals or a group of individuals who make decisions within social processes. This means that the creation of information is never neutral, but a social process.
2. HOW is the information produced and made accessible?
   Each medium has its own language with its own grammar and semantics. Information can be made available digitally, visually, via audio, or print. It is therefore necessary to understand and analyze the different languages and inscribed codes. 
3. HOW can information be understood differently?
   Individuals and groups do not always understand media messages in the same way. So the audience always has an active role in the reception and analysis of information.
4. WHAT values and ideologies can be found in the information or are influenced by the medium?
   Media messages and the medium through which they are disseminated are always biased and support and/or challenge dominant hierarchies of power, privilege, and pleasure.
5. WHY was this media content created and/or disseminated?
   Media content is created within specific structures and serves a purpose (commercial or institutional). Depending on the structure, other goals guide the selection and creation of content. It is important to learn the different institutions and systems that motivate and structure media at local, national, and global levels. Many of these are corporations whose primary goal is to maximize profits.
6. WHO do issues or perspectives presented in media benefit and/or harm?
   Media culture is a terrain of contention that reinforces or challenges positive or negative ideas about people, groups, and issues – without ever being neutral. Therefore, it is important to question media in terms of social and environmental justice.

Another important part of critical media literacy is also learning the skills to generate and distribute media messages by yourself, and thus to better understand the ways in which they are made.

Critical media literacy thus offers multiple perspectives from which children and young people can learn to understand and analyze (digital) information and media messages, identify potential biases, and be able to produce content themselves. In today’s digital age, these are crucial skills for children and young people. In this regard, the acquired skills can be an important tool for identifying misinformation and fake news – and ultimately also an important democratic skill for emerging citizens.

References

• Barton, C. C. (2019). Critical Literacy in the Post-Truth Media Landscape. Policy Futures in Education, 17(8), 1024–1036. https://doi.org/10.1177/1478210319831569
• Bulger, M. & Davison, P. (2018). The Promises, Challenges, and Futures of Media Literacy. The Journal of Media Literacy Education, 10(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.23860/JMLE-2018-10-1-1
• Forsman, M. (2020). The Critical Mindset in Times of Distrust. Education for Democracy 2.0, 121-137. https://doi-org.uaccess.univie.ac.at/10.1163/9789004448490_008
• Frechette, J. (2019). Keeping Media Literacy Critical during the Post-Truth Crisis over Fake News. The International Journal of Critical Media Literacy, 1(1), 51–65. https://doi.org/10.1163/25900110-00101004
• Kellner, & Share, J. (2019). The Critical Media Literacy Guide (Vol. 2). https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004404533
• Peissl, H. & Sedlaczek, A. (2022). Kritische Medienkompetenz vor dem Hintergrund der Digitalisierung. Media and Information Literacy (MIL) und Critical Media Literacy (CML) im Vergleich. Magazin erwachsenenbildung.at, 44/45. https://doi.org/10.25656/01:24474