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8.1: The five areas of Media and Information Literacy

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    294883
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    • Access, which is the ability to have access to information, media, and news.
    • Analysis and comprehension, which means that people should be able to analyse and understand information, media, and news.
    • Critical evaluation, which means that people should be able to evaluate the truthfulness of information, media, and news to consider what the message is, what the aim of the sender is – in short, to make sure that the media, information, or news can be trusted.
    • Use, which refers to being able to find value in the media, information, or news that you consume; it should have some meaning for you.
    • Creation and engagement, which refers to people not just being users of information, media, and news but being able to engage with them and even creating their own media, information, and news.

    It is important to understand how the digital world works to be able to participate fully and responsibly in it. Because of easy access to this digital world, everyone should have the skills to understand that not everything out there can be trusted, that many people have agendas with the messages that they send, and that there is a lot of disinformation and fake news on the web.

    The ability to identify fake news or disinformation – which is a major problem in the digital era – is very important. It is all around us; many people send around messages on WhatsApp or on other platforms that are simply not true. There are “trolls” on platforms such as Twitter who deliberately spread disinformation for political or other reasons. Journalists should develop the skills to identify disinformation and fake news. Being media and information literate already helps you to identify fake news and false information, because you will know how to evaluate information.


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