Media Literacy Practice, Finland Sample - 2021
Media Literacy Practice, Finland Sample - 2021
Media literacy has growing importance. A crucial review on media literacy was published in The Telegraph by Harriet Barber on 16 February 2021 (*). In this review, it was reported that Finland ranks best in Europe for fighting disinformation, spurred on by attacks from their Russian neighbor. The outstanding effort was described as Finland’s secret weapon in the fight against fake news: its kindergarten children.
Before we dive in deep
What is media literacy?
Media literacy encompasses the practices that allow people to access, critically evaluate, and create or manipulate media. Media literacy is not restricted to one medium (Wikipedia). Media literacy education is intended to promote awareness of media influence and create an active stance towards both consuming and creating media (Wikipedia).
Media literacy practice here! Let us discover the pathway of success from the review: ↓
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Why is media literacy important?
Media literacy has growing importance. It is possible to witness misinformation at any time. Last week, it was reported that almost half of the UK’s children complained they were being exposed to misinformation every day – more than one in 10 said they see it more than six times a day.
Finland recently topped a European annual index measuring resistance to misinformation and disinformation and the country puts its success down to targeting its children.
In 2014 the government embedded media literacy – which has been practiced since the ‘70s – into the curriculum, teaching children from the age of six to read sources critically.
Teachers encourage children to evaluate and fact-check websites, ask students to hunt for dubious news and find its source and demonstrate how easy it is for statistics to be manipulated. It’s taught across all disciplines. In art children might see how images can be digitally altered; in history, propaganda campaigns are analyzed.
Why does this matter?
Importance of information literacy
But Finland has more reason than most to target disinformation. In 2014, when neighboring Russia annexed Crimea, it began looking nervously at its noisy neighbor. Jussi Toivanen, the chief communication specialist at the Finnish prime minister's office, says: “After the illegal annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, we saw an increased disinformation activity targeted at Finland. For example, attempts to rewrite our history and persecution of journalists and researchers who covered Russia critically.”
He says that in recent years there have been efforts to erode trust in society, democracy, and its institutions, such as the media and the elections. Finland declared independence from Russia in 1917.
That's not all ...
“There has been outright dissemination of disinformation relating, for example, to Covid-19, vaccines,” he adds.
And yet – little has got through. “[Attempts] have not resonated in our society. People are critical and they are aware of these kinds of attempts and activities. I can say that our society has been resilient,” Mr. Toivanen notes.
But there is a catch!
Mr. Toivanen places the country’s success down to its teachers: “Our education system plays a very crucial role in combating disinformation.”
Social media literacy
Minna Harmanen, the counselor for education and a former teacher, says that with the increasing use of the internet and social media there’s a need for a more “profound literacy”.
“We don’t know who has made [online] texts, written them, or who is spreading them. The need to critically read has arisen quite a lot in recent years,” she says.
Her feelings on the topic are strong: “Propaganda, misinformation and ‘fake news’ have the potential to polarise public opinion, promote violent extremism and hate speech and ultimately, to undermine democracies and reduce trust in the democratic processes.”
Media literacy programs in schools
Ms. Harmanen says that Finnish schools have a tradition of analyzing current affairs and using contemporary sources, such as news reports. They’ll run mock debates and write essays on how those debates went.
One activity asks students to find how the media in one country portrays people living in another, and what to believe from the coverage. Another asks children to identify their “social media bubble”, discuss how it affects attitudes towards people with differing opinions, and teaches them how to burst it.
It beds down into wider society too – Ed Miliband asked Vesa Häkkinen, the director of current affairs communications, on his podcast about how the anti-disinformation campaign works. Mr. Häkkinen gave the example of a children’s television show in which a teddy-bear criticizes news coverage.
Examples of media literacy in the classroom
Students are taught “to critically understand and assess information reported by all forms of media,” Ms. Marmanen adds.
Heidi Pentikäinen, a teacher of Finnish language and literature, says that her teenage students are “very eager” to discuss media ethics.
She says that, as all classroom teaching uses digital materials, the children are reading online material for large portions of their day – “everybody has seen misinformation and everyone has heard something”.
The best part
The principles taught are followed throughout a child’s education. “Teaching and learning about media literacy and critical thinking is a life-long journey. It starts at kindergartens and continues at elementary schools, high schools, and universities,” Mr. Toivanen says.
Even then, critical thinking education doesn’t end. Since 2016, more than 10,000 civil servants, journalists, and NGOs have trained in building resilience to disinformation. An NGO also launched a fact-checking service, Faktabaari (Fact Bar) for the 2014 European elections for adults and children alike – it’s run by volunteers and creates voter literacy kits for schools and the wider public. In spring, the government will launch a nationwide communications campaign against disinformation as part of their municipal election preparations.
Bottom line
Asked about if the learning will ramp up, Ms. Harmanen says: “It has to strengthen in the coming years, it’s more important now. It’s not merely literacy, but how you are part of society, how you are in your neighborhoods and in school. It’s part of being in society – it’s democracy.”
Mr. Toivanen says countering disinformation “is a daily activity for us” and that “no one wins this battle alone”.
* This post is extracted from the above-written news article and can be read from the full article from here.
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