I have a friend called Bill. Bill in his late 60s, slightly right of centre, widowed with adult children and young grandchildren, a big deal in the IT sector in the 80s and 90s, he’s now spending his retirement trolling on Facebook. Everyone needs a hobby. Bill has a mischievous sense of humour, and delights in winding up liberals like me. Since the early days of the Brexit referendum, he has delighted in winding up remainers by disseminating disinformation. The morning after the referendum, I rang him up to shout at him. I shouted at [...]

Working together to bridge the gap in media literacy education Did you know that 9-16-year-old children are using the internet for an average 88 minutes per day? In those 88 minutes it is hard to imagine that what they are faced with is entirely harmless. At such a young age, they are consuming huge amounts of content and are opened to situations that can have huge impacts on their wellbeing and development. The question is, how to educate youth of the dangers and negative implications of media in this constantly changing, digital, information society [...]

A piece by Tapio Varis Professor emeritus, University of Tampere, Unesco Chair in Global e-learning CIVILIZATIONAL APPROACH TO MEDIA LITERACY AND KNOWLEDGE 27th AMIC Annual Conference “Communication, Technology, and New Humanism”  17-19 June at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand   The new media and journalists are often believed to make knowledge out of the global flow of data and information. The global use of digital media and ICT network applications as well as rapid technological advancements in big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and other emerging digital technologies have fundamentally changed the information and communication [...]

We were promised a populist takeover of the European Parliament. And wouldn’t it have been exciting if it had happened. In a mass-grave sort of way. If some segments of the news media are to be believed, it is in fact what happened. Europe is going full-fascist, right-wing nationalists are taking over and you’ll be swapping your last tin of tuna for a blue inhaler before the year is out. But let’s take a breath (inhalers at the ready) and look behind the rhetoric at the reality. True, the centre-ground lost. But if anyone is [...]

After more than two years of discussions, beginning in 2016, the updated AVMSD was adopted in November 2018. Now it is time for Member States to incorporate the guidelines into their legal frameworks and institutions.   The hot topic of the moment, and probably one of the most controversial aspect of the AVMSD, is the implication of video sharing platforms (VSP’s) under this directive. So, let’s start with an ambiguous question, do all platforms hosting video’s fall under this directive? Or should it be specifically for platforms whose main function is video hosting? A few [...]

In a pub in a village in England, there are more than 1000 tallies on the ceiling beams. They count the number of times Tony, a local patron, has cited a fact he gleaned from the Daily Mail which later turned out to be untrue. The first tally was drawn in the late eighties. The latest, last week. In the debate that rages over fake news, the bulk of the suppliers, carriers and users are almost completely overlooked. It is as though policy makers believe that fake news occurs in a vacuum, produced by a [...]

On 29th and 30th April, 2019, EAVI hosted workshops and a pub quiz at the Digital Activism tent as part of YoFest at the European Parliament. Organised by the European Youth Forum, YoFest is the largest political youth festival in Europe, which joined forces with the European Commission and Parliament this year to celebrate European Youth Week. EAVI was joined by young people from all around Europe to find out more about political movements, enjoy music, and of course, learn about media literacy. A workshop, led by Naomi Thompson and attended by around 60 people, [...]

On the 10th of April, we were invited to a short presentation on the new transparency rules that Facebook is introducing in Europe in the run up to the European Elections. This is Facebook's step in ‘’protecting integrity’’ and cracking down on fake accounts. It also aims to tackle cross-border interference, or at least make it much more difficult to do so. Generally, the work in tackling content on Facebook begins approximately 18 months before an electorate cycle. Of course, this depends also on the cycle of the particular election. Facebook now have 30,000 people [...]

I watch a lot of Disney. I can give you a ranking of the (objectively) best Disney films, a history of feminism through its Princesses, and diversity in mainstream characters. I could write you a dissertation on the historical inaccuracies of Pocahontas alone. And don’t get me started on how much Disney hates mothers. I blame this depth of knowledge and thought about kids’ films on the tiny humans I live with. When we cuddle on the sofa on Film Night, I’m busy working on my doctoral thesis in my head and they stare, glassy [...]