School media production

By “school media” we mean the media that arise within the context of the school and which are produced by the students themselves: newspapers and magazines, websites, school radio and television stations, etc.

The aim is to provide the students with true experiences of mediated communication, thus bringing them closer to the logic of the major media.

 

Media Industry more attentive to media literacy

It is becoming ever more evident that the media themselves are turning into a platform and a vehicle for media literacy.

In France, in Italy, in the United Kingdom, Spain and many other countries in the European Union, there are examples of television or radio programmes on media contents. Generally speaking, they are aimed at young audiences and encourage debates, analysis, or simply provide information on the essential issues in media literacy. Other programmes are aimed at promoting the use of digital media and at demonstrating their advantages among specific groups.

In Spain, the newspaper El País, with the initiative “ El País de los Estudiantes ” offers the chance to students to create a newspaper; Children's Film Festivals, conferences, reports and proposals for the international distribution of films for children in the UK.

 

New active participation by stakeholders

The participation of civil society in media literacy is at a parallel to the rise in media literacy as part of formal education. It is important to mention here the rising participation in the field of family and children’s associations. Children and teens prefer to decide for themselves how to use the media. Media education seems to disappear and we paradoxically find ourselves facing an undeniable trend: voluntarily or involuntarily, parents tend to delegate their children’s upbringing to the media; instead of media education we tend to find mediated education.

Italy is a good example of the existence of associative movements of all types (teachers, experts, citizens, mixed, parents, families, etc.) which are directly or indirectly involved in promoting media literacy.

Involvement of regulatory authorities

Broadcasting regulation may be exercised in different ways, but the most common organization form in Europe is that of the independent regulatory authority which is characterized by the fact that it is not part of the actual structure of governmental administration, and that it has apparatus which does not serve any other body at its disposal.

In Hungary there are hardly any regulatory authorities. Slovenia has an authority in the field of telecommunications and electronic communications.

In Spain, Austria, Finland and Ireland some regulatory authorities exist. In Spain, there is no single independent regulatory authority in the field of media communication, but they do exist in the autonomous regions (CAC, Consell de l'Audiovisual de Catalunya, Consejo Audiovisual Andaluz and Consejo audiovisual de Navarra).

On the other hand, in Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy, regulatory authorities deal systematically with media literacy

United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France and the Conseil del Audiovisual de Cataunya (Spain) are directly involved in Media literacy.

Almost all of these authorities recognise the safeguarding of plurality and the protection of audiences as fundamental tasks. Promoting media literacy should be among the duties of these institutions along these lines: the development and preservation of independent, pluralistic and responsibly minded media requires citizens to be aware and to support this process, as well as being actively involved.

The new strategy of some independent regulatory authorities embraces: monitoring, research, active promotion and partnership.

 

Tension and dynamics

Digital literacy / Media education (it includes the acquisition of technical and instrumental skills, and to a lesser extent the consideration of the cultural, communicative dimension of this type of literacy; supporters of media or mass media education – tend to approach media literacy more as a process of raising awareness and of development of critical abilities)

Interpretative (critical thinking) / Productive (media production skills) (the dominant trend in Europe, however, is to combine both perspectives in integrated focuses)

Formal / informal

Economic / political (an economic focus of media literacy considers media skills as a condition for employability and media literacy as a way to develop and increase productive skills in society. A more political focus sees media literacy as a key aspect achieving objective of active citizenship)

Mass media/ Digital media (focuses of media literacy, one centred on mass media, the other on new digital media)

Civil actors / educational actors