Hello everybody. My name is Martin Dobes and I am from the Czech EPALE team. Of course, media literacy is a hot topic in my country – as well as in majority of all EU countries.

I agree with what has been said regarding the need to change the definition of „media literacy“ so that it covers the fact that we all are now creators of media content. Actually, the speed with which media change is so dynamic that we will have to adapt the definition of the term constantly in the future.

However, this is not – as I see it – the main problem.  When we speak about school education, media literacy is a part of curriculum in primary and secondary education as a cross-theme in the Czech Republic (and in many other countries), but in reality schools are not quite prepared to dig deep enough as they should and reflect the peculiar problems of hoaxes, fake news etc. Teachers are often afraid to reflect most recent developments, social or political, as they fear rejection or they themselves need more support in the field. And as for adults? There is a basic trouble here. Medially illiterate person does not know about his/her incompetence – quite contrary. What we lack completely is the motivation to learn (among those who need it). And we lack techniques to stimulate the motivation.

There is the other side of the coin – and this would be typical for former Eastern-Block EU countries. Spreading disinformation and hoaxes has unfortunately become a hidden tool of political struggle to such an extent that it is actually not in the interest of certain political parties and movements (and in some cases even state institutions) to address the issue.

A very vulnerable target group here are senior citizens. Prior to presidential elections in the Czech Republic, tens of thousands of old people had been systematically sent emails with various misleading content. And many of them have sent them further on so that it circled the whole country in huge numbers.

I'm Karine Nicolay of the EPALE NSS in Belgium/Flanders and I wanted to tell you about 'Mediawijs'. Mediawijs is the Flemish Knowledge Centre for Digital and Media Literacy at imec vzw on the initiative of the Flemish Minister for Media. We aim to help the citizens of the Flemish community in Flanders and Brussels to use ICT and media consciously, critically, actively and creatively to participate in society.
To that end Mediawijs sets up consultation, networks and cooperation with and between the Flemish digital and media literacy field, inspires the Flemish digital and media literacy field with training, sharing knowledge and developing practice, stimulates citizens to acte digital and media literate with information and campaigns, keeps tab on all things ICT & media and digital and media literacy, plays an active role in developing policy on digital and media literacy in Flanders, Brussels and Europe.

There's a web page in English about Mediawijs: https://en.mediawijs.be/

But most of the materials can be found on the Dutch page: https://mediawijs.be/

Good morning from EPALE NSS Austria!
Media literacy has been receiving much attention when working with children and adolescents here in Austria, and we are also witnessing an increasing awareness of the need to promote media literacy for all age groups. As for the definition above: it is helpful to describe Media Literacy not only in a technical terms, but also to point to the notion of critical thinking as a core component of critical media literacy. 
Just to give an example of the actitivies here: 

I will be joining the discussion in the afternoon again, looking forward to todays discussion! 

1.     Is media literacy a topic of public debate in your country? Is it e.g. discussed in connection with the term of “fake news”? Is it a political topic? Give examples of the debate in your country.

In Portugal, discussions about the relevance of media literacy are more frequent and begin to address the issue of fake news.

In December 2017, the Parliamentary Committee on Culture, Communication, Youth and Sports of the Republic Assembly held an international meeting entitled "Media pluralism in Europe and Portugal". In May of the same year, the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of the New University of Lisbon organized a conference called "Fake news and algorithms", addressing editorial responsibility and freedom of expression in the online world.

Thus, the subject has been discussed mainly in the political and academic domains and considered as transversal theme that any education and training provider can develop in its practices of education and training.

In our country, there is a reference of education for the media for pre-school education, basic education and secondary education, since April 2014. This material is available at http://www.dge.mec.pt/sites /default/files/ficheiros/referencial_educacao_media_2014.pdf

This issue is seen as part of Education for Citizenship and it is a subject of Directorate-General for Education responsibility. This reference clarifies in its foreword that "media literacy implies the ability to understand - or critically read - the media and the social and cultural processes through which images and representations of the world in which we live are presented, using different images ". And, "critically reading the media" is "being able to recognize and value what contributes to the broadening of horizons, to knowledge of what is happening in the world, to the reception of the diversity of values ​​and worldviews and to the construction of identities ".

Although it is seen as a lifelong learning process, the referential clarifies that formal basic education is "a decisive step".

In the field of adult education and training, including the recognition and certification of prior learning, there are two referents that are used by Qualifica Centres professionals and by adult teachers and trainers: one for basic level of education and other for secondary level of education.

Both include contents related to literacy media. The referent for basic level has a domain entitled “Language and communication”, which can be worked with adults throughout media contents, as news, advertising, opinion articles.

The reference to the secondary level of education addresses the theme of media literacy in three of its four areas of competence, namely “ICT”, "Society, technology and science" and "Culture, language and communication". Therefore, adults who perform competency recognition processes or who attend training courses will, at the end of training, demonstrate evidence of competencies related to the following issues: the impact of the media on building public opinion; the evolution of technological networks and social networks; the importance of the media in the creation of media power; the impact of the Internet and the development of a critical attitude towards the contents available there.

2.    What do you think are the media literacy skills most needed by European adults in 2018? Do you think adult’s media literacy education should differ from that of children or young people? How?

Media literacy has to be transversal and should happen throughout life, because, as is well known, media themselves have been changing and suffering many influences generated by society and industrial changes.

Today, media literacy cannot be limited to the ability to interpret contents, it must go further.

Today there are two new problems that people need to be aware of. The first is that we are no longer just news consumers. Today, anyone can also be a content producer. This is a positive thing, because it has democratized access to the media, giving voice to all people, but it is also a negative thing because everyone can broadcast contents and there is no way to control the veracity of what is disseminated, particularly in social networks. Therefore, in order to distinguish between what can be credible and what cannot, we must have access to a much more solid knowledge of our reality and the contexts in which we act and live.

The second problem is related to the track we all leave whenever we emit our likes and interests or whenever we do Internet searches. We must be aware that everything we do is mapped out and can be used for commercial and other purposes that we cannot control. That is why we need to be careful with how we use the media and in particular social networks.

In addition to enabling the use of media, understanding them and even creating contents, media literacy should also promote awareness to these two problems.

As adult learning effectiveness depends on been pragmatic and applied to adults concrete life situations it must be different from those for children and young people.