Starting in November 2020 and running until June 2021, the Media & Learning Association (MLA) and Nordicom are running a monthly webinar series which aims to support the growing number of organisations and individuals keen to help young people become more media literate. These webinars are open to anyone interested in the topic of media literacy including researchers, practitioners and policy makers.
What’s on the agenda?
Taking place on Wednesdays from 15:00 to 16:00 CET, each of these webinars is focused on a different country or region in order to better understand how efforts to improve media literacy skills and competences amongst young people are being supported in that specific national or regional setting. Each webinar begins with an introduction to the relevant policy framework and the extent to which media literacy is supported and promoted in an educational context. We aim to highlight what is happening both in formal as well as informal education and to try to understand the ‘big picture’ when in comes to media literacy in the targeted geographical area. In other words, what, if any, specific policies are in place and who is responsible for implementing such policies.
We also aim to provide a real ‘flavour’ of media literacy in the targeted area. We are fully aware that we can never do justice to the large number of media literacy projects, initiatives and activities that take place in a region, but what we try to do is to include interviews with people leading 2 or 3 projects to get an idea of the types of initiatives that are underway.
We also include each month a round up of news about media literacy with a focus on European developments, this includes calls for volunteers to try out prototypes, announcements of funding opportunities, relevant event announcements, introductions to new players in the field, etc.
This series is closely tied to the ongoing series of articles that we carry each month in the Media & Learning Newsletter on the topic of media literacy which is helping build the media literacy community in Europe.
Who’s involved?
Webinar moderators and hosts are Maarit Jaakkola from Nordicom and Sally Reynolds from the Media & Learning Association.
This series is developed in close cooperation with a dedicated advisory committee which includes:
- Andy Demeulenaere, heads the team of IMEC-SMIT-VUB’s Mediawijs, the Flemish Knowledge Centre on Digital and Media Literacy in Belgium
- Martina Chapman, National Coordinator, Media Literacy Ireland & Member of Council of Europe Expert Committee (MSI-JOQ)
- Robert Tomljenović, Vice President of the Electronic Media Council., Croatia
