Dear Hosts,
Your Excellency President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria,
Your Excellency Mr. Ibrahim Gambari,
Your Excellency Mr. Mohammed, minister of information,
Director General of UNESCO, Your Excellency Mrs. Audrey Azoulay,
Your Excellency Mr. Tawfiq Jelassi, Assistant Director General for Communication and Information at UNESCO,
Your Excellencies,
Fellow Media Literacy researchers, teachers and participants:
It’s an honor to participate in the official launch of UNESCO’s Global Media Literacy Week.
Are there moments, thinking about communications in the 21st century, where like me, you’re reminded of George Orwell’s 1984? The screens switched on, 24/7, the feeling that Big Brother may be watching you. Newspeak, so often practiced and diffused to larger audiences via social media.
We now have to make conscious and constant efforts to distinguish what is true from what isn’t, on a daily basis. A challenging task, especially for those of us using Twitter or Tik Tok as they have, according to a recent study, by the Integrity Institute, the highest “misinformation Amplification Factor.”
Beyond the misinformation -which in itself can be dangerous – there are serious safety concerns.
I am sure you have all heard about the tragic suicide of a 14-year-old girl, Molly Russell, in the UK, earlier this month. The coroner’s ruling was that “Molly died from an act of self-harm while suffering from depression and the negative effects of online content.” A few weeks later, a report in the Times of London revealed how a very popular social media app actually recommends searches for suicide methods to vulnerable people -and there isn’t even any age verification by the way, to create an account on that app.
This, of course, is a very extreme case of the impact social media can have. Yet, it alerts us that a great deal needs to be done, urgently, to place boundaries where safety is concerned and to teach young people to regulate their online use, and to be more discerning, in handling all sorts of content.
The internet offers a wealth of ideas, knowledge, and opportunities to connect with others: how much have we learned from Ted talks, or Podcasts, from people who we otherwise would have never had the chance to listen to? How grateful were we for the internet during the Pandemic, when art and culture online saved us from our isolation?
I am grateful today, that I am able to join you virtually, and share a few things about our experience in Jordan, how social media can be harnessed as a public good as the Minister of information mentioned, despite everything, and where I believe we should focus when it comes to MIL
One of our basic human rights is of course, the right to know, the right to be well informed – the right to the truth, which is essential if there is to be trust.
This is what led me to become a journalist, and it is why I founded the Jordan Media Institute, JMI, 14 years ago.
At JMI, we teach our students the basic rule of journalism: that the public has the right to know, and journalists have a duty to tell the truth, but also to do no harm.
The current way in which information is shared, though, is no longer only down to journalists who are trained professionally. It is down to technology provided by Big Tech companies and to all of us, as we are now all equally proud producers and consumers of content. Here in Jordan, it means from the age of 10 on average, regardless of social and economic backgrounds.
Aware of that fact, JMI launched Jordan’s MIL journey in 2013, training students, faculty and staff. By 2016, JMI was commissioned by UNESCO to implement for the first time an all encompassing, MIL Project in public schools and universities, across the nation, supported by the EU. For a year and a half, the teachers we trained in public schools, established MIL clubs where we trained teenagers.
The feedback from the pilot project went beyond our expectations: to be told by a 14-year-old “I understand now how terrorists get into our heads,” makes one want to persevere.
The team at JMI went on to develop the first Arabic language syllabus, textbooks, and policy papers, which led to it receiving an endorsement from the Ministry for Higher Education – as well as the UNESCO GAPMIL Award for 2018.
A lot remains to be done of course, with constant changes in technology,
and we look forward to further developing our work in that field through regional and global partnerships.
Our main challenge in the region, as in so many countries, remains the limited funding currently put aside for such programmes.
But the right to safety, including online safety, is also a basic human right, for all.
Yet today, with the current social media landscape, whether or not we can practice that right seems to be, in great part, in the hands of tech companies.
Some of you may be familiar with Amnesty International’s damning report entitled “the Social Atrocity,” which explains how Meta’s content-shaping algorithms proactively amplified and promoted content on the Facebook platform which incited violence, hatred and discrimination against the Rohingya.
It will not have been the first time in history that media technology – no matter how elaborate – is used to spread hate, to discriminate and conduct ethnic cleansing, genocide or other atrocities.
I am reminded of the role that was played by la Radio des Mille Collines in the Rwandan Genocide in 1994.
And it is impossible not to recall that of the anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda in the buildup to the Holocaust, in Germany and Occupied France.
More than the technology itself, it is the way in which those media are used or sometimes not used, that is the problem.
And that is why any literacy training today has to be about Media and Information, where critical thinking is key.
Because we are all, then, in a much stronger position to be in control and harness the positive side of this double-edged sword.
Indeed, let’s not forget that social media can also act as a multiplier of accountability, as in the case of George Floyd’s murder in the US, or more recently, in Iran or Tunisia where it enables activists to sound the alarm on what is happening.
Images shown on social media have, also, after all, played a crucial role in Ukraine. Tik Tok videos and other social media apps allow people to record and share attacks on civilians or even to show Russian army movements.
Of course, we are often left wondering which videos and images are accurate, aware as we are that misinformation is rife and truth is always the first casualty of war.
Professional media outlets are able to use new tools to “geolocate and verify” the information they receive,.
It is those exact skills that CNN’s investigative team used to ascertain that an Israeli sniper shot and took the life of Al Jazeera’s Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh in May, where he was positioned, and to establish that she was not killed by random crossfire.
What is at stake, is our awareness of what is actually happening, getting real information, uncovering dangerous drifts that might lead in some extreme cases to loss of life. It is about our relationship with the truth.
In world of deepfake technology, knowledge of where to find reliable sources of information that can be trusted is essential.
And we are not all media literate enough to be able to do this important and thorough work to the degree that news outlets can.
The proper training would, however, empower us to more systematically search for the truth, beyond what we want to hear, to ask questions and make sure our children do as well.
The international federation of library associations and institutions defines Media Literacy as “a basic human right in an increasingly digital, interdependent and global world, and promotes greater social inclusion.”
In 1948, the universal declaration of human rights stated that elementary education shall be compulsory.
Considering the world in which we live, MIL should be included within elementary education, as it is in Finland.
It is in fact, according to UNESCO, among the most essential twenty first century skills. Its curricula for media literacy is a valuable resource.
In our knowledge-based economies, it would not be a luxury to also have an adult media and information literacy act, with funding to support its implementation on a global scale.
Because media Literacy also goes beyond teaching accessing, analysing and evaluating media content. It can help people do business, it can help give a voice to those without one, and it can help protect them from abuses of this technology. MIL is today’s basic literacy skill.
UNESCO also states that media and information literate persons are better able to have a constructive dialogue with government, media, social media and businesses in their circles on issues that matter to them.
As President of The Anna Lindh Foundation, which aims to promote intercultural dialogue in the Euro-Mediterranean region through the 4,500 networks under its umbrella, it is obvious to me that media and education -and among them MIL – are central to building bridges and to refusing the risk of a clash of civilizations.
Our affiliated networks have requested more support for MIL projects and since March alone, they have carried out activities linked to Hate Speech and MIL, in at least a dozen out of the 42 countries in our region.
The spread of MIL provides the enabling environment we need, for our societies to become closer. And as it guarantees more quality and ethical content, it can also open the door to more freedom of expression.
We only need to look at what the new generations are doing: they are already using social media to build bridges. Those born since 1995 are believed to be the most internationally connected in history.
As a result, they are able to practice intercultural dialogue on so many levels– because they are also comfortable with global and intercultural communication. They are also aware of and sensitive to the great issues of our time, such as inequalities, racism and climate change. And are finding solutions, often through social media platforms, to address them peacefully.
As Dr. Jad Melki, the author of several MIL programmes across our region, wrote, “Media and digital literacy is media education for the masses. It is the silent revolution that can counter the ideologies of greed, hate and death and fight for generalizing and globalizing social justice and egalitarian systems.”