This interview is part of the ”Digital Media Literacy in EDMO Round Table’‘ interview series that is published every month to highlight the work of the 14 EDMO hubs.
EDMO Ireland – The European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) Ireland Hub
Martina Chapman, Independant Consultant in Media and Information Literacy, Ireland; Eileen Culloty, Assistant Professor in the School of Communications and deputy director of the DCU Institute for Media, Democracy, and Society; Vice-Chair of Media Literacy Ireland, Ireland.
Can you give us an update on your media literacy activities since our last interview?
Since the last interview in 2023, the Ireland Hub has been busy promoting media literacy in a number of ways.
1. The relationship with Media Literacy Ireland has been further enhanced with the EDMO Ireland members participating in the MLI Steering Group and the MLI Coordinator participating in EDMO Media Literacy Working Group. This streamlines communication and coordination between the two bodies.
2. In autumn 2023, in partnership with MLI, EDMO Ireland developed and delivered the Be Media Smart Community Training Programme. This pilot project aimed to explore the appetite within communities for a ‘Do-it-yourself’ training programme that community leaders could access and deliver within their own communities. The pilot also aimed to start to build a network of community-based trainers who are interested in delivering media literacy training.
Central to this programme was the Be Media Smart Workshop in a Box, developed by the then EDMO Ireland’s Media Literacy Coordinator, Dr. Ricardo Castellini Da Silva, which consists of teaching guidelines, slides, and learning resources to empower teachers, librarians and community leaders with the necessary knowledge, tools, techniques, and resources they need to deliver a media literacy workshop in their communities. The Be Media Smart Workshop in a Box is freely available for download on the MLI website in both English and Irish, and it can be adapted to cater for different target audiences with a copyright free license.
Over the course of 8 weeks, nine 3-hour long training sessions were delivered, amounting to 118 attendees in total. The sessions aimed to explain how the teaching resources should be used, showing the different materials, guiding participants through the slides, and engaging them in conversations about different media literacy topics. To help us improve the resources and the training sessions, all participants were invited to complete a post-training survey. Of the 118 people trained, 61 participants completed the post-training evaluation survey. The vast majority (98.3% of respondents) reported that the training met their expectations ‘very much so’ or ‘to a large extent’, and that 83.6% found the resources ‘very relevant and useful’. The vast majority of attendees who completed the survey also agreed that after the training two things have improved: their knowledge of media literacy concepts and the disinformation problem (88.5%), and their skills as a media literacy trainer (86.8%). Two thirds of respondents also claimed that they feel confident enough to organise and deliver the media literacy workshop within their communities. The survey also highlighted the need for sustainability measures and continuation of training.
It is intended that the Workshop in a Box will continue to be developed and improved, with a proposal already under consideration for creating bespoke, sector-specific training.
3. Around the same time, EDMO Ireland members, Dr. Ricardo Castellini Da Silva and Dr. Eileen Culloty, were heavily involved in the Media Literacy Ireland Be Media Smart campaign, participating in a significant number of TV, radio and print interviews and acting as Be Media Smart experts for the month-long campaign. In addition, EDMO Ireland and MLI co-hosted five online events to support the Be Media Smart campaign, reaching 119 participants and the feedback from each was extremely positive.
4. In April and May, EDMO Media Literacy Working Group member Martina Chapman worked with other EDMO Hub members to develop the Be Election Smart campaign and the Ireland EDMO Hub and the MLI network actively promoted the campaign in Ireland for the duration of the campaign.
5. In August 2024, we were successful in partnering with organisations in Catalonia and Portugal to secure funding for a new project ‘MIL CC’. The project will develop and promote three concrete outcomes: (i) an updated hybrid course (in English, Spanish and Portuguese) that equips librarians with relevant knowledge and skills to provide MIL to the local community; (ii) a comprehensive set of standards to design, implement and assess MIL community projects led by public libraries; (iii) a network of interconnected European libraries in the fight against disinformation, with activities open to the global community. The overall approach aims at depth and breadth. Depth is achieved in IR, SP and PT with an established relationship between the MIL practitioners and the public library networks. This ensures a comprehensive development, implementation, and evaluation process. Breadth is achieved through the involvement of library experts from 7 European countries in the validation of the course and of the standards for the implementation of MIL community.
6. DCU has also applied for a number of research grants or been involved in research consultancy grants that draw on our expertise as members of EDMO. DCU is a consultant on a Creative Europe project on news literacy and a national project on media literacy for further education. DCU led a large consortium for a doctoral network on media literacy which will be resubmitted this year.
How do you define what constitutes an effective media literacy initiative in your context?
Media literacy is a life-long learning journey, which often includes behaviour change based on very individual needs and skills, which can also be influenced by a range of social, economic and political factors. It is extremely difficult to measure the efficacy of an initiative based on the behaviour of the intended audience.
There are a number of indicators of the effectiveness of media literacy initiatives, depending on what the aims of the initiative are. These can include:
- Quantitative indicators such as numbers of people attending an event or participating in training, % of the population reached for a campaign, or % of people who engage with resources.
- Qualitative indicators such as how the intended recipients rated the initiative (via feedback surveys etc), action taken as a result of the initiative, or changes in attitude or behaviour measured over time (although this is tricky).
- Partner/ Stakeholder feedback on aspects of the initiative such as how it was run, how it was received, what kind of support was provided, whether it was perceived to provide value for money.
- Project legacy, in particular, knowing where the initiative sits within the broader stakeholder or national media literacy framework, and understanding how it builds on previous activities and provides a way forward for new activities.
In order to try to understand what makes a media literacy initiative effective, it is essential that a comprehensive evaluation process is established at the beginning of the project which includes appropriate opportunities to use feedback and findings to refine and improve the initiative.
For example, during autumn 2023 when EDMO Ireland and Media Literacy Ireland were collaborating on the Be Media Smart Community Training Programme, a robust data gathering process was implemented to gather feedback on the process and outcomes of the training and this information was used to improve the project.
Which group do you target most often with your media literacy initiatives? (e.g. teachers, librarians, journalists, youth workers, young people, older people) What is the motivation for targeting these groups, and how do you reach them?
The work of EDMO Ireland targets all members of society, however some of our more significant activities, such as the Be Media Smart Community Training initiative did focus on community leaders, librarians and educators. Educators were also the target group for one of the five dedicated Be Media Smart events in autumn 2023. In addition, as experts we seek to inform the policy process with expert testimony and evidence.
Is there potential for collaboration with those outside civil society in your country/ies? For example, with policymakers, regulatory authorities or the tech industry. If so, what form does such collaboration take?
Absolutely, through our collaboration with Media Literacy Ireland we regularly engage with and collaborate with a wide range of partners from across society. In addition, EDMO Ireland is represented on the Government’s National Counter Disinformation Strategy Working Group and is regularly invited to give expert testimony to parliamentary committees and to statutory bodies.
Where do you think the best opportunities lie for you going forward in promoting media literacy and tackling disinformation in your country/ies?
With the establishment of the new media regulator in Ireland, and the implementation of key European legislation, the Irish Online Safety Code, as well as other related national strategies, there is a lot of potential to promote media literacy and tackle disinformation in Ireland in the coming years. Key to making the most of these opportunities is ensuring that EDMO Ireland continues to be recognised as an expert in the field and is resourced to engage and collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders to develop and deliver initiatives that meet the specific media literacy needs of people in Ireland.
