Public Authority roles #EUmedialiteracyweek #infolit

Next for my liveblogging at the European Media Literacy Week conference is a panel discussion: Which role for public authorities in supporting quality journalism and fostering media literacy skills among citizens?. The panellists are: Helga Trüpel (Member of the European Parliament); Jean-Paul Philippot (Director-General, RTBF); Celene Craig (Chair, European Platform of Regulatory Authorities (EPRA); Luboš Kukliš (Chair, European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services (ERGA); Mirta Lourenço (Chief, Media Development, UNESCO);  Wout van Wijk (Executive Director, News Media Europe); chaired by Madeleine De Cock Buning (Professor of Digital Politics, Economy and Society at European University Institute, Florence).
Kuklis introduced the work of the 4-year-old European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services (ERGA), and he emphasised the role and value of regulators. This theme was taken up by Graig, who advocated their value, particularly in working collaboratively. Graig also mentioned the Irish regulations and the work of Media Literacy Ireland: there seems to be information about that here: https://www.bai.ie/en/viewers-listeners/understanding-media/
Trüpel stressed once more the responsibility of journalists, tech companies and the media, and touched on the tension between free speech and free internet (on the one hand) and the need to regulate and control misinfomation and anti-democratic action in the media (on the other). She felt that "good regulation" was needed to tackle the problems, but most of all responsible action from the socialmedia platforms and search engines.
Philippot outlined his organisation's media literacy policy, which had the ambition "From media targets to media actors: develop people's ability to be media productive", which involves developing critical thinking skills. The action plan includes elements such as "highlight and explain our editorial choices", for example telling the audience why a sensational murder is not featured as the headlined choice. It also included involving all staff, and engaging the audience/creators actively with workshops, tours and dialogue (e.g. there is an "Inside - behind the scenes" initiative). Philippot also mentioned the European (and regional and federal) elections, and specific campaigns to encourage citizens to think critically about information and to make informed decisions.
Mirta Lourenço made the first reference to Media and Information Literacy (MIL) (at last!). She talked about the MIL Curriculum for teachers and how it has been implemented in some countries, the MIL assessment framework, the Global MIL conference, journalism handbook etc. (all of which I have blogged previously) She also identified that there is a need to focus on MIL of older people as well as younger people. One of the other things she mentioned is types of education for journalism. De Cock Buning asked about how UNESCO's initiatives could support vulnerable countries, and Lourenco emphasised that its initiatives were indeed aimed at these vulnerable countries. She added that because of a lack of literacy in many of these countries, and because of the many languages spoken in some of them, they needed to use a variety of media. Because of lack of electricity, unreliable bandwidth and because the mobile phones are not advanced models, basic media such as radio are still important. Lourenco also called for a harmonisation between the European Media Literacy week and Global Media and Information Literacy week.
Finally, I'm pleased that the need to look at the media of literacy of older people is being recognised, but I'm completely fed up with the lazy ageist anecdotes about people's fathers', aunts' etc. stupidity when engaging with media.