KAVI’s media education supporting democracy, social resilience and comprehensive security

Promoting media education has long been a statutory task of the National Audiovisual Institute of Finland (KAVI). The Ministry of Education and Culture may also define the Agency’s tasks more precisely, and in particular the promotion of critical media literacy is seen as an important part of our media education mission. In 2023, the strengthening of democratisation and national resilience against information influencing was added to KAVI’s tasks and objectives. In addition, KAVI should consider the promotion of media literacy as part of the overall security and social security strategy. What is it all about? Is the media education authority turning into a security authority?

The short answer to the last question is: no, it is not. In a longer answer, I will explain how we take into account the new mandates and objectives in KAVIs media education work.

The new priorities are driven by changes in the information environment. Whether they are long-term or short-term changes depends on the perspective. However, issues such as the growing importance of social media as a source of information, the gradual loss of trust in journalism and other institutions, large-scale disinformation campaigns and the spread of conspiracy theories, hostile state information operations, and using deep fakes made with the help of new technologies in shaping social opinion have alerted decision-makers and authorities in the EU and Finland. First, it has been realised that the internet and social media may not be as positive arenas of opportunity as they were perceived to be 10-20 years ago. Secondly, it has been concluded that better media literacy among the population could protect democracy and the stability of societies.

Media literacy as part of psychological resilience

In Finland, media literacy has for years been taken into account as part of the Security Strategy for the Society (2017). The strategy harmonises the principles of preparedness and guides preparedness. Media literacy is seen as part of “psychological resilience”. According to the strategy, “[e]ncouraging critical media literacy and digital basic skills and promoting reliable journalism and media atmosphere strengthen civic participation, help citizens to safely navigate in a multifaceted media environment and help to counter disinformation.” Finland’s overall approach to security is unique in the international arena. It is based on the idea that the vital functions of society are taken care of through cooperation between public authorities, business, organisations, and citizens. Security does not only come from the activities of the security authorities. A secure and crisis-resistant Finland is built together, with each actor working on its own basic task.

Cross-sectoral cooperation

The best way for us at KAVI to make a difference is to do our task of promoting media education and media literacy as well as we can. For us, this means doing high-quality work and working together widely and appropriately to increase the impact of our activities. We wan to to support as many professionals as possible who promote media literacy in their work. To this end, we have a constantly evolving Media Literacy School website, which offers a wealth of media education teaching and information materials. We also train professionals in different fields and offer online training open to all.

But media literacy is not a panacea for building democratic and sustainable societies. We see it as part of the “building block” of social resilience that is the result of quality education, social and health policies. As university lecturer Tapio Juntunen has argued (in Finnish), alongside crisis resilience is societal adaptability: the ability to adapt positively to new circumstances following a crisis. Such adaptability requires social structures that strengthen social and political trust and reduce experiences of inequality. One part of this is to provide people with ample opportunities to develop their (critical) media literacy. Media literacy provides not only understanding and skills to assess the reliability of messages, but also opportunities and democratic means to influence and participate in social debate. Even if the message is critical of those in power or of us in authority. Media education does not dictate what to think but gives us the means to think and act when we want to.

Societal resilience is built not only at the systemic level, but also on the level of individuals and communities. Media education practices and objectives that support the well-being of individuals and communities, mutual trust, a sense of belonging and empathy are important not only for individuals and communities themselves, but also for society as a whole. In 2024, our special focus in media education will be on well-being. 

However, the most obvious impact of the new priorities will be on our collaboration within government. It is important that the government knows what part KAVI plays in the overall security puzzle. We will therefore continue to intensify our joint work and exchange of information with our colleagues in different sections of the government.

For years, the Media Education and Audiovisual Media department and the Media education team at KAVI have been working on the idea that promoting media literacy supports people’s ability to live a good life and contributes to maintaining and developing a sound economy. We believe that media literacy contributes to democracy and peace both in Finland and internationally. Our core objectives remain unchanged, although our work is also seen through a new framework.

Senior Adviser

Saara Salomaa

National Audiovisual Institute

Photo: Smederevac / iStock

The desired outcomes for digitalisation for early childhood education and care and basic education, published in November 2023, is an important policy for promoting media literacy. In the publication of the Ministry of Education and Culture, media literacy and media education are clearly highlighted as part of digital literacy. The desired outcome also indicates that, in addition to the digital literacy descriptions for children and young people, descriptions will also be produced for teaching staff.

Digitalisation has made strong progress in the field of education and training, but the overall picture of the needs of the different actors and the ongoing developments has been incomplete and development work has been sporadic and ad hoc. This is described in the newly published Desired outcome for digitalisation, which is part of the Framework for Digitalisation in Early Childhood Education and Care, Comprehensive School Education and Liberal Adult Education’ project, launched by the Ministry of Education and Culture in 2022. The purpose of the description of the desired outcome is to concretise the targets set by the Digital Compass for Finland, the Guidelines for Digitalisation in Education 2027 and other important documents defining digitalisation in the sector from the perspective of early childhood education and comprehensive school education.

The desired outcome sets the basis for future development work by showing the direction to which all actors in education and training can aim in their development work. As a result, national strategic guidance will lead to concrete measures that will contribute to the development of digitalisation towards a commonly shared target state in the sector.

Gaps in training are recognised – special attention to media education

In the desired outcome paper, digitalisation is considered through seven strands:

conditions for developing digitalisation, digital competence, support for developing digital infrastructure, services and interoperability, information management and quality, data protection and data security, legislation on digitalisation and its interpretation, and research on digitalisation.

The most important area for media literacy is digital competence, with the aim of creating a coherent learning pathway from early childhood education onwards. The target states that “[t]he digital literacy of children and young people has not developed as required by the existing early childhood, pre-primary and primary education curricula.” One of the challenges is that although digital literacy and multiliteracies (including media literacy) are included in the curricula as areas of transversal competences, many teachers have received little training on the topics in their own pre-service training. In-service training for both teaching staff and administrators has also been inadequate.

Regarding media literacy, the target state clearly states that “[s]pecial attention will be paid to the media literacy of children and young people and the media education skills of staff. AI literacy and critical literacy will also be strengthened.”

The paper also emphasises digital well-being and states that “the flood of misinformation and disinformation highlights the importance of media literacy not only at the level of individuals, but also from the point of view of social resilience and democratic development.”

The desired outcome indicates that the development and maintenance of competence descriptions for children and young people will continue and that specific competence descriptions will be produced for teaching staff. KAVI is involved in the work on the desired outcome for the digitalisation and we will continue to communicate on the progress of the work.

Read more:

Policies for the digitalisation of education and training until 2027

Julia Alajärvi, Senior Adviser

National Audiovisual Institute

Image: Rabbit Visuals

A recent study examined the current state of media education in Finnish municipalities. It revealed many strengths, such as the role of libraries and the systematic approach to promoting media literacy among children and young people. The study also identified areas where there are clear weaknesses.

Focus on management

Many municipalities have invested in developing media education in recent years. It was therefore important to understand municipalities’ media education activities, challenges and good practices in promoting media education, and the views of municipal actors regarding media education management. The aim was neither to evaluate nor compare, but to focus on practices of cross-governance and management of media education.

For the study, almost thirty officials in eight municipalities of different sizes and in different parts of Finland were interviewed in groups. The study was carried out co-operatively by the Cultural Policy Research Centre Cupore and the National Audiovisual Institute KAVI.

Strategies bring equality to media education practices

In the municipalities surveyed, media education is largely established as part of the work of the education and cultural departments. Media education has been particularly strongly taken into account in early childhood education, basic education and libraries, and there is also regular and planned cooperation between these actors.

However, media education is not always implemented equally and practices vary. Corrective measures are needed, particularly in terms of management and structures. Media education and media literacy could be more strongly reflected in local authority strategies.

The study also showed that although municipalities recognise the importance of media literacy for adults, there are few systematic measures to promote it. Citizens would also benefit from stronger links between the municipal education sector and the welfare sector.

The full report in Finnish was published in The Media Education Forum on 23 May 2023. The extended abstract is available in English.

For more information on the research, contact KAVI’s experts on media education.

The NordMedia research conference was organized in Bergen, in the rugged Norwegian landscape. Photo: Saara Salomaa

The biannual NordMedia research conference attracted hundreds of participants to Bergen, Norway from the 16^th to the 18^th of August. Founded in 1973, the conference has been held every other year for 50 years.

NordMedia has its own group for media literacy and media education research, but one of the great things about the conference is that it offers such a wide range of perspectives on media-related research, especially in a Northern European context. I also went to listen to presentations on political communication research. Juha Herkman and Joonas Koivukoski, from the Finnish perspective, were particularly on the cutting edge of the times, whose presentation “From the ‘willy card’ to foreign spices” dealt with humour scandals in the Finnish political publicity in 1990–2020. The presentation was based on research that has been done in the larger Political Humour in the Power Struggles of Democracy project.

The researchers pointed out that in political scandals, the media exposes a violation of norms that causes widespread public disapproval. The humour scandal is especially about offensive humour, which is often aimed at, for example, religion, gender, or ethnicity. Comedy scandals have changed with the development of the media and have clearly become more common in Finland. While only two political humour scandals that received national attention could be identified from the 1990s, there were already 16 from the 2010s. Current scandals also reflect more than before the political confrontation between right-wing populist parties and others.

After the presentation, I asked Juha Herkman and Joonas Koivukoski what humour scandals mean from the point of view of critical media literacy and how could they be considered. Here are some tips for media educators:

• First, it is necessary to recognize that humour challenges media literacy because humour itself is an ambiguous subject. In certain reference groups, things that don’t seem funny at all to others can be perceived as amusing. On the other hand, the sign of a functioning social debate is that there is a value-based public debate, and you can’t ignore anything just by dismissing it as humour. The task of media education is also to highlight things done with humour.
• When dealing with a scandal, it is worth asking: who is involved in it, why are these parties involved, and what are we fighting for? From what position do you communicate, is the person or entity that caused the commotion with their actions, for example, in a position of power in relation to the targets of their message?
• Humour is known to be a common device associated with populist rhetoric. When looking at the humour scandal, you can wonder if it is fundamentally about humour or a serious effort. Is there an actor behind it that systematically pushes its political agenda under the guise of humour?
• The media’s role in scandals should also be considered. For the media, scandals are sometimes very challenging. Socially significant phenomena must be dealt with, but on the other hand, the media can become involved in ways that would not be desirable by the journalists. Populists can benefit from the media attention they receive and thus consciously try to stir up scandals. The journalists’ choice of words also plays a role in what kind of message is conveyed: For example, by talking about “Nazi humour”, the media may inadvertently be legitimizing the claim that it is “just a joke”. The word choice “Nazi references”, on the other hand, is more neutral, and does not in itself take a position on what the communication that caused the scandal is about.

KAVI’s media education experts were well represented at NordMedia: Lauri Palsa’s presentation dealt with the conceptual contextualization of media literacy, Ella Airola’s on the design principles of equal media literacy. In my own presentation, I looked at early childhood education teacher training and teachers’ perceptions of media education in the interpretive framework of media education awareness. In addition, we were able to hear about other interesting studies on Finnish media education. I recommend that you take a closer look at, for example, studies on the critical reading of young people, peer tutors for digital guidance for seniors, and ninth graders’ experiences related to “youth lived online“.

Saara Salomaa

Senior Adviser

National Audiovisual Institute

Blog 27.6.2023 / Photo: Sofia Grönberg

In a media-saturated world, equal and high-quality media literacy is increasingly important. However, the promotion of media literacy is not an easy task. Fortunately, media literacy professionals have a lot of possibilities to find solutions to complex challenges.

In the midst of rapid changes, impactful solutions can be found, for example, by listening to others, learning about current phenomena and concepts, discussing together and reflecting on issues from the perspective of one’s own experiences and strengths.

The new Media literacy reflections -video series offers professionals working in the field of media literacy and related topics the opportunity to explore and reflect on current phenomena from the perspective of their own expertise.

The presentations by international experts help to make connections between different concepts, sectors, communities and social environments, while inspiring new thinking and opening up new perspectives.

The video series can be found at: www.medialiteracy.fi/reflections

You can use the videos to develop your own thinking or use them to stimulate discussion in your professional community.

Welcome!

Lauri Palsa, PhD, Senior adviser

National audiovisual institute KAVI

Blog 21.6.2023 / Photo: 1) Skye Studios, 2) Ville Sohn, KAVI

The importance of research, reliable knowledge and information-based management has been discussed widely, but the utilization and implementation of researched knowledge is not actually always straightforward or easy. The solutions found by media literacy professionals were openly published in a guiding website.

There is a lot of research on various media phenomena, related literacies and competencies and education. Topics are explored from many different perspectives, in different countries and in different disciplines. However, the potential of all this researched knowledge is not necessarily utilized as much as it could be.

Media literacy work in planned, carried out and developed by a wide range of professionals and experts in different sectors of the society. Consequently, research can have many different meanings depending on the objectives and contexts of one’s own activities. Often, the meaning of research is discussed in a high and abstract level, overshadowing practices of everyday life. Given the diversity of activities and contexts in the media literacy work, it is important to find ways that actually meet the needs and are in line with other practices and the professional environment. The meaning and practices to make use of the researched knowledge can be different for different people.

The results of the workshop in the form of an open guide

We compiled the results of our discussions with more than 30 professionals and experts into an openly available guiding website. The purpose of the website is to make visible the rationale for developing research-based practice, to gather examples of what it can mean in practice and to provide a guidelines for promoting research-based practice.

There is not a single and only way to promote media literacy. Thus is is important that the research-based approach is implemented according to own’s own objectives, practices and context. The guiding website can offer a place for reflection and inspiration.

The guide can be found at: medialukutaitosuomessa.fi/en/researchbased

What kind of possibilities for researched knowledge do you identify in your own work?

Lauri Palsa, PhD, Senior adviser

National Audiovisual Institute KAVI

P.S. Thank you to everyone who participated in the workshop!