This new UKLA Special Interest Group in media literacy provides a network to bring literacy practitioners and media educators in the UK together and a platform for communication with policy makers, OFCOM and European / international media literacy research groups. Over the initial two years of the SIG’s activities, it will aim to promote a research-informed approach to media literacy education and to promote media literacy as an essential element of literacy education in the 21st century; collate and support research-informed educational media literacy practice and disseminate this to both literacy and media educators to bring these two communities of practice together.
The group’s outputs so far have been presented at the Media Education Association conference at the British Film Institute in London and the Media Education Summit at Metropolitan University, Prague and the SIG will next form a symposia at the UKLA conference in July.
At the MEA event, it presented the outcome of the first research project and met with media teachers who were interested in the group. The SIG’s objectives were shared with David Buckingham and Sonia Livingstone, whilst its other critical friend Alison Preston from OFCOM has also offered advice.
Two projects have been commissioned – a pilot study mapping the media literacy competences of students with a GCSE in Media Studies to pan-European MIL criteria and a co-creation project to develop media literacy resources for secondary teachers of English, History, ICT and Government and Politics. The first project is complete and its findings will be published by the Journal of Media Literacy Education shortly, whilst the MEA / MES presentation on the research can be viewed here.
The second project has just begun, and the researchers will be working with teachers, who came forward to express an interest in the SIG following the MEA event, in three schools in Birmingham, London and Cambridge for the next year. The participating teachers have been funded by the project to join UKLA and attend the July conference.
For more information about this SIG or to express an interest in getting involved, please contact Julian McDougall – julian@cemp.ac.uk
