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Sonia Livingstone

May 25th, 2011

Media literacy, the coalition government, and Jeremy Hunt

1 comment | 6 shares

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Sonia Livingstone

May 25th, 2011

Media literacy, the coalition government, and Jeremy Hunt

1 comment | 6 shares

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

For many who had worked for years in the field of media literacy, it seemed a triumph that the 2003 Communications Act required Ofcom to promote media literacy. It had become clear that in a fast changing world where media matters more than ever, users no longer rely on gatekeepers, and there is an urgent need to skill up. Immediately, a debate was sparked – what is media literacy, how can it be promoted, how can it be measured, and what is the value of media literacy?  But, since the Coalition Government came to power last year, it seems that everything has gone quiet.  For our answers to these questions, see the dossier on media literacy and the Communications Act, 2003.

Ofcom is scaling back its activities in this area, the ambitions sketched out in the Digital Britain Report have been quietly dropped, and attention is returning to the more prosaic though still important task of getting the British public online in the first place, with fewer questions asked about what they will do, or know, or misunderstand once they are online.

To find out what the Government plans, I wrote to Secretary of State Jeremy Hunt in January and I received this reply in March. He says,

“I can assure you that the Government remains fully committed to the ongoing development and promotion of media literacy in the UK.”

But then he points to the need for economic cuts, resulting in “a phased reduction in our support for Ofcom’s media literacy work.”

In our recent expert seminar, concerns were expressed that efforts to enhance critical, creative and participatory literacies will wane. Hunt’s letter certainly gives these crucial elements of media literacy little weight, instead noting that current policies do incorporate some degree of media literacy skills in the school curriculum (although whether and how this is done is left up to schools) and enhance child safety protections via the UK Council for Child Internet Safety and the Bailey Review. Except in relation to such specific activities as vocational education and the work of the BBC, he does not show how media literacy is to be enhanced among the adult population. But adults as well as children, surely, are grappling – with more or less success – with our complex and fast-changing media environment.

In our forthcoming work, we will examine why this matters, who is getting left behind, and what we think should happen next.

About the author

Sonia Livingstone

Sonia Livingstone OBE is Professor of Social Psychology in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE. Taking a comparative, critical and contextual approach, her research examines how the changing conditions of mediation are reshaping everyday practices and possibilities for action. She has published twenty books on media audiences, media literacy and media regulation, with a particular focus on the opportunities and risks of digital media use in the everyday lives of children and young people. Her most recent book is The class: living and learning in the digital age (2016, with Julian Sefton-Green). Sonia has advised the UK government, European Commission, European Parliament, Council of Europe and other national and international organisations on children’s rights, risks and safety in the digital age. She was awarded the title of Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2014 'for services to children and child internet safety.' Sonia Livingstone is a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, the British Psychological Society, the Royal Society for the Arts and fellow and past President of the International Communication Association (ICA). She has been visiting professor at the Universities of Bergen, Copenhagen, Harvard, Illinois, Milan, Oslo, Paris II, Pennsylvania, and Stockholm, and is on the editorial board of several leading journals. She is on the Executive Board of the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, is a member of the Internet Watch Foundation’s Ethics Committee, is an Expert Advisor to the Council of Europe, and was recently Special Advisor to the House of Lords’ Select Committee on Communications, among other roles. Sonia has received many awards and honours, including honorary doctorates from the University of Montreal, Université Panthéon Assas, the Erasmus University of Rotterdam, the University of the Basque Country, and the University of Copenhagen. She is currently leading the project Global Kids Online (with UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti and EU Kids Online), researching children’s understanding of digital privacy (funded by the Information Commissioner’s Office) and writing a book with Alicia Blum-Ross called ‘Parenting for a Digital Future (Oxford University Press), among other research, impact and writing projects. Sonia is chairing LSE’s Truth, Trust and Technology Commission in 2017-2018, and participates in the European Commission-funded research networks, DigiLitEY and MakEY. She runs a blog called www.parenting.digital and contributes to the LSE’s Media Policy Project blog. Follow her on Twitter @Livingstone_S

Posted In: Children and the Media | Media Literacy

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