April 2012
European Policies and Broadcasters’ Efforts for the Fostering of Literacy
Sachiko I. Kodaira
As the media environment keeps changing, the awareness of “media literacy” as an ability to interact with the media wisely and to live a proactive life in society is rising all over the world. In Europe, where the improvement of “media literacy” is regarded indispensable for the development of European society, this topic is more and more discussed not only as a part of policy-making of each nation but also at the entire EU level. Against this backdrop, various efforts are also being made at European broadcasters.
Europe has a long history of media literacy education that began with film education. Since the 1990s, the debates on this issue have expanded beyond the film and television with an acute awareness of new media environment encompassing the Internet, games, etc. Coming into the 2000s, Europe became more aware of the indispensability of improving “media literacy” for the development of European society, which was put on the table in the context of EU’s media and educational policies. Experts from European countries have been working together to extensively collect and put together multifaceted aspects of “media literacy” in order to elucidate how they interact one another. Such research is underway as an attempt to evaluate the “media literacy” level in European society. Furthermore, there are expanding opportunities where involved nations learn from each other by studying conventional approaches to media education in other countries.
Looking at efforts made by broadcasters, there are many interesting cases. The public service broadcaster in Finland offers learning materials on media education responding to various age groups, ranging from children to adults, in a systematic manner. German public broadcasters not only deploy their own efforts to this issue but also play an important role in the media-literacy promotion campaign led by the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth. The BBC has diverse projects such as the BBC News School Report where children learn the nature of the media by experiencing news-production themselves and an educational campaign that aims at creating an environment where all individuals including senior citizens can enjoy learning, pursuing their hobbies, and communicating with other people without being left behind by the new media.
In Japan, too, NHK and commercial broadcasters have been working on the promotion of “media literacy” with their own approaches since around 2000. How have these efforts contributed to society? How are they appreciated by the public? Just as the BBC attempts to do, it is also necessary for us to examine the meaning of handling this issue and explore effective approaches for the future from the standpoint of broadcaster, after sorting out and analyzing the overall situation.