Interview with Kate Norman – Print 10, Tell 10, Teach 10

In this interview recorded at UK GovCamp 2012, Kate Norman talks to Cathy Aitchison about the project
Print 10, Tell 10, Teach 10.

Click on the player below to listen (3′ 26″)
or click here for more details about the interview on AudioBoo.

Media and Information Literacy (MIL) – Fez Declaration and Curriculum for Teachers

In June this year, representatives from 40 countries around the world met together in Fez for the First International Forum on Media and Information Literacy (MIL).

The Forum was organized in partnership between UNESCO, the Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University (Morocco), the Islamic Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (ISESCO), the Arab Bureau of Education for the Gulf States (ABEGS), the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) and other partners. It was held from 15 to 17 June 2011 in Fez, Morocco, under the auspices of His Majesty King Mohammed the Sixth.

There were two key outcomes of the Forum – the publication of the Fez Declaration and the launch of the Media and Information Curriculum for Teachers
- click here for links to both on the UNESCO website.

The Fez Declaration (pdf) from participants of the Forum gives a commitment to the importance of media and information literacy in today’s digital age with its convergence of communication technologies. It affirms the importance of MIL in achieving sustainable human development, in building participatory civic societies, and in contributing to “the consolidation of sustainable world peace, freedom, democracy, good governance and the fostering of constructive intercultural knowledge, dialogue and mutual understanding”.

The Media and Information Literacy Curriculum for Teachers is a detailed practical resource in two parts:
~ Part 1, the MIL Curriculum and Competency Framework, gives an overview of the curriculum rationale, design and main themes
~ Part 2 contains the detailed Core and Non-Core Modules of the curriculum (nine core modules, two non-core modules and three non-core units). These cover a wide range of media and information topics including citizenship, freedom of expression and information, access to information, democratic discourse and life-long learning, understanding the news, media and information ethics, representation in media and information, advertising, new and traditional media and internet opportunities and challenges.

It’s very comprehensive and clear. I have one question, though, namely why Module 11 – Media, Technology and the Global Village – is not a core module. Units 1 and 4 in particular (on Media Ownership in Today’s Global Village and on The Rise of Alternative Media) should, in my opinion, be required.

UNESCO intends to translate the MIL Curriculum for Teachers – firstly into Arabic, French, Russian and Spanish, and eventually into other languages.

Useful links:
~ UNESCO
~ Fez Declaration – or click to download (pdf)
~ MIL Curriculum for Teachers – or click to download (pdf)

~ Ofcom Media Literacy Publications and Research

First International Forum on Media and Information Literacy – Fez

A new model curriculum for Media and Information Literacy (MIL) will be launched this week in Fez, Morocco. by UNESCO (the UN’s educational, scientific and cultural organisation) at the First International Forum on Media and Information Literacy.

The Forum takes place from Wednesday 15th to Friday 17th June *Note
It is being organised by the Research Group on Mass Communication, Culture and Society; the Laboratory of Discourse, Creativity and Society: Perception and Implications; the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Sais-Fes; and Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University in Fez, in collaboration with a number of partners led by UNESCO (plus key partners: ISESCO, the Arab Bureau of Education for the Gulf States (ABEGS) and the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC)).

The rationale behind the forum and the new curriculum is two-fold:

Firstly, the belief that in the digital age and convergence of communications, information literacy and media literacy should go hand in hand to achieve full human development, to build up civic societies, and to lay the foundations for world peace and intercultural constructive dialogue.

Seeing that media literacy and information literacy are closely intertwined, UNESCO took the lead in blending the two concepts in education curricula to cope with the challenges of inclusive-information and knowledge-based societies. A Model Media and Information Literacy Curriculum was prepared to this effect and this will be launched by UNESCO in three languages (English, French and Arabic) at the Forum.

Secondly, the awareness that most of the research, strategies and action plans undertaken so far in this field are dominated by Western perspectives which stem from Western contexts and realities.

This Forum aims to examine, among others, the state of the art of MIL in developing and emergent countries and to set the stage for MIL from cross-cultural perspectives. The organisers write: “while the North has gone far ahead in media and information literacy, the South is still lagging far behind despite the extensive interaction of young people with media and ICTs in the South as it was demonstrated by the recent uprising in the Arab world.”

To try and address this, UNESCO and the Research Group on Mass Communication, Culture and Society, Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Fez, are also organizing, in cooperation with ISESCO, the Arab Region Consultation on the Media and Information Literacy Curriculum in order to adapt it to the needs and specificities of this region. This first edition of the Forum will also provide a platform for launching the UNESCO/UNAOC MIL and Intercultural Dialogue University Network (UAC-MILID).

At the Forum there will be representatives from over 35 countries, including from the whole of the Arab Region, as well as from Asia, Africa, America and Europe.

~ *Note the change of dates – the Forum was originally to be held in May
~ Press Release: First International Forum on Media and Information Literacy, Fez, Morocco, 15-17 June 2011

It’s a migration not a switch-off, stupid

Digital Radio
How important is it that the debate on digital radio always includes the phrase ‘switch off’? Does it matter that the plan is in fact for a migration to digital, leaving the analogue spectrum (or whatever it’s called) to community radio and other small players?

Yes, I think it does matter, for two main reasons.

Firstly, it’s a subversive coersion tactic: if you publicise loudly and often enough that there’s going to be a ‘switch-off’, eventually people fall in line, as they are doing with the (correctly named) switch-off of analogue television. Make them nervous of what is going to happen and steer them in the direction you want them to follow. I would bet that it’s no accident that the radio industry uses the term ‘switch-off’, especially in the run-up to Christmas, with the prospect of all those nice DAB radios finding their way into people’s home as gifts. Again, make people nervous of what is going to happen and steer them in the direction you want them to follow. In this case, that’s onto the DAB system, which has been discussed endlessly elsewhere as to whether or not it’s the right system.

Secondly, there has been a worrying lack of discussion around how the freed-up analogue spectrum will be used, allocated and policed. With all the mainstream players shunted (sometimes against their will) onto DAB, will community radio really have full use of the analogue spectrum? Or will we be faced with the bizarre situation of ‘pirates’ from the mainstream? What if, purely hypothetically, BBC Radio 4 decided that it couldn’t give up its FM slot but would continue to use it, eg. just for the Today programme in the mornings, in addition to digital? Would they get the same treatment as a black music station illegally broadcasting from a housing estate rooftop, with confiscation of equipment and being banned from holding a licence for a number of years? The mind boggles.

The ‘switch-off’ angle is more compelling if you want to get people to take action by buying new equipment. But I would have thought a ‘freeing up analogue for you’ would have been equally good, if the opportunities for small local radio stations really were going to increase with the migration.

But I doubt whether they are.

My fear is that there will be little in the way of support for the small-scale community alternatives on post-migration analogue, either financially or by way of endorsement from government or regulators. Instead, the ‘switch-off’ angle will become so ingrained that, when it happens, the sector on analogue will not be strong enough to fill the dial sustainably – so the government or its advisors will then say ‘It hasn’t worked. Look at all that under-used analogue spectrum, let’s now sell it off’. When history came to be written, the fact that it was never intended to be a switch-off would be conveniently forgotten, airbrushing out the middle stage of analogue for community radio.

By the way, my choice of the Today programme above is of course tongue-in-cheek, but also deliberate as an example here: this morning the otherwise excellent item from Tom Bateman (debunking some exaggerated listening figures for digital) unfortunately also contained the SWITCH-OFF error: click here to listen and judge for yourself. Eight out of ten, Today, because you moved so fast to counteract an extraordinary abuse of statistics (the speed doubtless helped by a deluge of emails and tweets from listeners who can spot a hype a mile off). What was that I said earlier about Today on FM? Maybe not so far-fetched after all…

[Update - link: Grant Goddard radio blog