25.10.2023

I can't swallow it! We build spaces of media trust

Barcelona

PhD Kari Kivinen

Landing of the Media and Information Literacy in education 

Concept and framework 

Social media is the main source of the news today!

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Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 2022, Digital News Report 2022, https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2022-06/Digital_News-Report_2022.pdf

Where did I get my daily news this week? Finland 2022

Internet Social media Radio Printed press TV

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Illustration from https://www.mediataitokoulu.fi/polkuja_varhaiskasvatus.pdf

Children are heavy users of different types of media sources

Finnish Media Education

• In Finland, media and information literacy (MIL) is seen as civic competence; important to every citizen from an early age.
• The term media education (mediakasvatus in Finnish) refers to the educational actions promoting MIL and the skills related to it.
• Media education is promoted through national policies and in various organizations and projects.

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• https://kavi.fi/sites/default/files/documents/mil_in_finland.pdf

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Use of smartphones - Spain

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1185655/daily-time-spent-on-smartphones-spain/6

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https://www.eukidsonline.ch/files/Eu-kids-online-2020-international-report.pdf

Social media is an essential part of the life of a teenager!

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Reflection I

• Do you know from which sources your students /children receive their daily news?
• How to get touch with that?
• Which approach would be best to develop their critical thinking skills when analysing social media content?

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The most popular social media services for 13-16 year olds in Finland

Listen to your students!

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Take your cues for digital literacy activities from the students and their experiences.

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Children and youth are faced by online challenges every day (confusing news, disinformation, hate speech, sexual harassment; etc.).

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Let students’ concerns and every day experiences guide the topics of lessons, and make them relevant and hands-on, without embarrassing or judging them.

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This can create (if well handled) an atmosphere of authenticity and trust in the classroom

https://murciatoday.com/online_sexual_harassment_of_minors_in_spain_increases_by_55_per_cent_1643472-a.html

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Why we need critical reading skills?

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According to research by the Finnish Critical Group

• around 40% of sixth-graders did not question the expertise of the commercial copywriter at all;

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• The majority of young people surveyed could not interpret misleading diagrams;

• Almost 30% of high school students had difficulties in assessing the reliability of online texts.

The Critical Group recommends that

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• Every young person needs critical literacy skills - the ability to seek information from different media, assess the reliability of texts and compare the information they contain.

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• Critical literacy and basic reading skills need to be supported in parallel.

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• Support for reading challenges should be provided as early as possible.

https://educritical.fi/en/

Finnish curricula & media education

• The role of media education in early childhood education is to support children's opportunities to be active and express themselves in their communities.
• Together with children explore different media and experiment playfully with media production in safe environments.
• Media content and its truthfulness in children's lives is discussed with the children. At the same time, developing source and media criticality.
• Children are guided to use media responsibly taking into account their own well-being and that of others.
• Media themes can be explored with children, for example through physical play, drawing or drama.

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Early Childhood Education and Care Plan (2022) and the Curriculum for Pre-primary Education (2014)

https://www.oph.fi/sites/default/files/documents/varhaiskasvatussuunnitelman_perusteet.pdf

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Media literacy Coding Digital skills

Early childhood education

Pre-primary education

Finnish new literacies approach - 2022

Grades 1-2

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Grades 3-6

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Grades 7-9

The development of new reading skills: Information management

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Finnish National Agency for Education

Example

https://eperusteet.opintopolku.fi/#/en/digiosaaminen/8706410/osaamiskokonaisuus/8706431

�Information management – learning outcomes�

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Pre-primary

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Children familiarise themselves with the basic use of a browser.

Children conduct image and sound searches

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Primary 3-6

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The pupil is able to evaluate the reliability of the information.

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The pupil practises justifying his or her evaluation.

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With guidance, the pupil is able to organise, classify and present information

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Examples

Secondary 7-9

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The pupil is able to assess the reliability of information and justify his or her evaluation

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The pupil is able to explain that the interpretation may change along with new sources and methods of examinations.

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The pupil is able to obtain, process and present information based on research

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Primary 1-2

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The pupil independently searches for information on issues and phenomena he or she is interested in.

With guidance, the pupil is able to evaluate the reliability of the information

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https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NJuVjMcPq5StRlxb0Y2_bFh6CD8RjhRX0WSoNB3oszo/edit#gid=653152810

�Development of interpretation and evaluation of media �

Early education

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Children learn to understand that some of the things presented by the media are true while others are fictional, and that media content has been created by people.

Children learn to understand the difference by taking and editing photos, for example.

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Pre-primary

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Children learn to understand media contents.

They process events and characters of fairy tales, games and children's programmes by means of different methods of expression and are encouraged to produce their own interpretations.�

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Primary 3-6

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The pupil is able to give some examples of how media content affects their actions, knowledge, opinions and impressions.

The pupil examines the effects critically.

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Examples

Secondary 7-9

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The pupil knows and is able to use the basic concepts related to different media content, such as films and journalistic and social media content.

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�Media as a source – learning outcomes�

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Pre-primary

Together, children search for information from media content in everyday situations.

Children study the difference between fictional and truthful media content, for example, by examining children's programmes and news suitable for children.�

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Primary 3-6

The pupil knows how to use media as a tool in learning new things.

The pupil compares media contents with guidance.

The pupil understands that the information communicated may be conflicting and that there are many perspectives to matters.

Examples

Secondary 7-9

The pupil is able to search for information from media contents and to examine his or her ways of obtaining information critically.

With guidance, the pupil evaluates different kinds of media contents as sources of information and reflects on their usefulness and reliability. 

The pupil understands the nature of the social media as a sources of information and is critical about information that is spread socially.

Primary 1-2

With guidance, the pupil is able to search for information from some digital media contents by using a search engine and search terms.

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The pupil familiarises himself of herself with media contents that communicate information, such as the news.

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Fact vs. opinion

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Exercise

What does it mean to be digitally competent today?

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https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC128415

The EU has set ambitious targets for at least 80% of the population to have basic digital skills by 2030.

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• DigComp 2.2. provides a common understanding of which are the key areas of digital competence.

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• Digital Literacy competences are considered as basic civic skills

DigComp 2.2. Information and Data Literacy

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What can we learn from fact-checkers?

F A K T A B A A R I

The working methods used by fact-checkers have become an essential part of new online reading skills.

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• Research shows that the way fact-checkers approach new information on digital platforms has proven to be very effective.

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• Image and video verification tools used by fact-checkers can be used by anybody

A practical tip

•  If a claim, image or video you come across online causes a strong emotional response, stop.

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• Disinformation spreaders often seek to stir up emotions, and when emotions are running high, it's harder to critically evaluate the claim.

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Online vs. offline environments

F A K T A B A A R I

• In the online environment, the amount of information available is breathtaking and it is possible to diffuse any information effortlessly to vast audiences in no time.

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• Contents can be changed, removed and added all the time.

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• The results of the search engines and recommender systems are individualised and unpredictable.

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Online environments are often designed to:

• maximise commercial interests, 
• capture and sustain users’ attention, 
• monetise user data, and 
• predict and influence future behavior

Kozyreva et al (2020)

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Online reading skills & strategies

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Traditional reading skills should be complemented by new online assessment strategies and online literacy skills to tackle disinformation!

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Effective methods proven to tackle disinformation:

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• prebunking (anticipation),
• debunking (correction),
• strategic ignorance
• lateral reading
• civic online reasoning
• etc

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Debunking & Pre-bunking

What is pre-bunking?

Pre-bunking is a process where people are warned in advance that they are about to be the target of false information.

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Pre-bunking can be taught to students by providing them with factual and some in-depth information on a particular subject beforehand, and then introducing the existing disinformation about the same subject.

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They can also be told in advance what kinds of disinformation they can expect.

What is debunking?

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Debunking happens after the fact, so after false information has appeared.

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The aim is to correct false information and to prevent others from believing what is verifiably false information.

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Those reading or seeing the information ‘see through’ what is being presented as fact and/or truth.

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Fact-checking strategies can be used to debunk misinformation and disinformation.

Promoting critical thinking skills

• Fact-checking, debunking, and pre-bunking all connect to the ability (of students) to judge the accuracy of information, use legitimate sources, and think about information in a critical way.

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• The best way for the students to learn all-round critical thinking, regardless of the context, is to apply homogeneous and simple methods of critical thinking in different subjects, themes and events.

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• Being critical does not mean being flat-out negative about a certain topic.
• The proper definition of ‘critical thinking’ denotes carefully balanced and analytical thinking.

Strategic ignorance

• When using powerful search engines, we sometimes get millions of hits.
• How to select information which is useful, truthful and which meets our initial information need? In this process we need human critical thinking to evaluate the value of the content algorithms are proposing for us – and we have put aside and ignore, most of the hits. 
• Advertisers, corporations, lobbyists, clickbait sites, conspiracy theorists, hate groups, and propaganda-fuelling governments work overtime to hijack our online attention.
• Often the wisest thing to do is to preserve attention by practicing strategic ignoring. Under conditions of limited attention, the most crucial decision to make is where to allocate it.

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• So, we must develop skills to ignore great amounts of non-important information.
• We should embrace strategic ignoring to avoid disinformation and to preserve our limited amount of attention on content which is really worth reading. 

Lateral reading

• Fact-checkers use lateral reading to search information.
• Instead of opening a suggested link and exploring each hit in depth, they laterally check the background of the information.

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• This is done by opening new windows in the browser, looking for answers to at least for the three key questions!

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Lateral reading

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The reader checks the background of the online information (author's credibility, facts, statistics, sources, etc.) on various sites and sources before reading the text at hand.

Civic online reasoning - free lessons

https://cor.stanford.edu/

The three key questions

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When confronted with a claim in the online environment, ask three key questions:

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1. Who is spreading the claim? Source?
2. What evidence has been presented to support the claim?
3. What do the other sources have to say about it?

Checking the trustworthiness of online texts

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Can an online text be trusted?

Assessment of the accuracy of the text content

Assessing the quality of arguments

Comparing with other texts

Comparing with previous knowledge

Assessment of the reliability of the source

Assessing the expertise and intentions of the source

Cf. Barzilai et al. 2020 & Kiili, C. and Kulju P. 2022. Kriittinen lukeminen. Tempus 322.

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How to evaluate a scientific claim and expertise of an expert? 

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Science Education in an Age of Misinformation

https://sciedandmisinfo.stanford.edu/

Scientific knowledge is our best current understanding of things.

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It is not anyone’s opinion or personal experience, but the result of a systematic process.

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It can change as new research findings and understanding develops.

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That’s why researched science is worth more than opinions! But how to evaluate a scientific claim?

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With a good knowledge of the subject, we can better assess the credibility of claims.

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Fact-checking process in a school

1. Select a claim that you want to check in a group
2. Examine the claim using different sources and check the facts (Wikipedia can be one source)
• Who, where, when and what said?
3. Write a fact-checking report based on the discoveries
4. Present your findings (“True, “False”, “50/50”, or opinion which cannot be fact-checked)
5. Publish and share the results with the class

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Groupwork idea

Interaction with experts

• The interaction between journalists, media experts and schools is warmly recommended. 
•  The basic idea of the Faktabaari EDU project was to adapt the proved fact-checking methods used by professional fact-checkers into the education field.
• We have organized plenty of workshops, webinars, school visits, etc. to scale up the best practice tools for a larger public.

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https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/a224c235-4843-11ed-92ed-01aa75ed71a1/language-en

The Commission expert group on tackling disinformation and promoting digital literacy through education and training guidelines are designed to support teachers by providing an understanding of how:

• Disinformation can be tackled
• Digital literacy can be achieved
• To use tech critically & responsibly
• Students can be assessed on their competences
• Translated in Spanish

Guidelines for teachers

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Digital information literacy guide by

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Digital information literacy guide https://faktabaari.fi/dil/

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FACTHACKER Videos

• YouTube
• Tiktok
• Instagram

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www.faktabaari.fi/dil

F A K T A B A A R I

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Invitation

FAKTABAARI

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LEARN IT.

Become (digital and critical) media and information literate yourself.

TEACH IT.

Include MIL / DIL in your teaching or guidance work. Cases and tools can be integrated in all subjects.

USE IT.

Apply the skills you have as a professional into

everyday life, too. Be a critical, democratic citizen.

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Let’s get inspired to learn and teach the critical citizenship skills!

References

• Debunking handbook: https://www.climatechangecommunication.org/debunking-handbook-2020/
• Early Childhood Education and Care Plan (2022) https://www.oph.fi/sites/default/files/documents/varhaiskasvatussuunnitelman_perusteet.pdf
• Eurostat (2021) Evaluating data, information and digital content- statistics https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/ISOC_SK_EDIC_I21/bookmark/bar?lang=en&bookmarkId=ac1c74e0-8919-423f-bb6b-036b844868dd
• Faktabaari materials, www.Faktabaari.fi/dil
• Final report of the expert group on tackling disinformation and promoting digital literacy - https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/72421f53-4458-11ed-92ed-01aa75ed71a1/language-en
• Finnish media study https://www.ebrand.fi/somejanuoret2019/
• Guidelines for teachers on tackling disinformation and promoting digital literacy through education (2022) https://education.ec.europa.eu/news/guidelines-for-teachers-and-educators-on-tackling-disinformation-and-promoting-digital-literacy-through-education-and-training
• KAVI (2021). Finnish Media Literacy: https://kavi.fi/sites/default/files/documents/mil_in_finland.pdf
• Media Literacy Index 2022 - https://osis.bg/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/HowItStarted_MediaLiteracyIndex2022_ENG_.pdf
• New Literacies (2021) Media literacy competence descriptions https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NJuVjMcPq5StRlxb0Y2_bFh6CD8RjhRX0WSoNB3oszo/edit#gid=1807680698
• Osborne, J., Pimentel, D., Alberts, B., Allchin, D., Barzilai, S., Bergstrom, C., Coffey, J., Donovan, B., Kivinen, K., Kozyreva. A., & Wineburg, S. (2022). Science Education in an Age of Misinformation. Stanford University, Stanford, CA. https://sciedandmisinfo.sites.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj25316/files/media/file/science_education_in_an_age_of_misinformation.pdf
• Vuorikari, R., Kluzer, S. and Punie, Y.(2022), DigComp 2.2: The Digital Competence Framework for Citizens - With new examples of knowledge, skills and attitudes, EUR 31006 EN, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, forthcoming, ISBN 978-92-76-48882-8, doi:10.2760/115376, JRC128415. https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC128415

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F A K T A B A A R I

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Kiitos

kari@kivinen.net�Faktabaari.fi