Urgent need to embed media literacy across national curriculum and impose a levy on tech companies, says Communications and Digital Committee.
‘Social cohesion is at risk and democracy itself is threatened by inadequate media literacy,’ begins the new report from the Communications and Digital Committee of the House of Lords. It defines this essential media literacy as ‘having the skills to think critically about the content we create and consume, both online and offline.’
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The report makes four key recommendations. First, we need to embed media literacy across the national curriculum, from the early years phase. That means media literacy should be included in initial teacher training, and part of the curriculum and assessment review.
Secondly, the report recommends imposing a levy on technology companies so as to provide long-term, sustainable funding for independent media literacy initiatives. It also argues that communications regulator Ofcom should set out minimum standards for platforms’ media literacy activity and use its wider powers to better understand their effectiveness.
Thirdly, it calls on the government to appoint a specific senior minister to drive the delivery of Ofcom’s media literacy strategy. And finally, it underlines the urgency of raising public awareness and targeted support for adults around this issue.
Among the evidence cited is that stark warning given to the committee by Dr Mhairi Aitken, Senior Ethics Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute, who said: ‘The deeper threat here is that increasingly, as there is exposure to and awareness of AI-generated content, people begin to lose trust in all content online. It is not just that we might see or hear something fake and believe that it is real.
‘Increasingly, people will see and hear things that are real and the first reaction might be, “How do I know that is not fake? That could be AI generated”. It is a particular concern when what people are confronted with … challenges existing ideological positions or political viewpoints that the initial response can be that it could be fake.’
Chris Morris, CEO of Full Fact, told the committee: ‘The consequence of not confronting the challenges … is that we are in danger of reaching a place where nobody believes anything they read, see or hear anywhere and, therefore, of creating a world of enormous distrust, which is clearly not good for our democracy, for businesses in this country or for our idea of who we are as a society. Media literacy is absolutely fundamental to give strength to what I think we hold dear in our society.’
The Lords will debate the findings of the report on March 16.
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