Cairo, 13-17 January, 2013
In line with UNESCO’s policy to spread media and information literacy (MIL) globally, a workshop was organized in collaboration with Cairo University for young journalists, information specialists and researchers. The workshop was initially planned for 25 persons, but because of the high demand from the target audiences, the workshop was organized for 65 persons, males and females from different parts of the Arab World. We also had two trainees from Afghanistan and Ghana.
First day
First session: “The rise of MIL and the need for it in our Modern World. UNESCO’s efforts to promote MIL in the world (Teachers training Curriculum, UNITWIN)”
This session was mainly about the new media and new literacies and the importance of media literacy in today’s modern world by professors Dr. José Manuel Tornero and Dr. Samy Tayie.
A summary on what took place during the session
Media are in the middle of our knowledge. Media should balance the political conflicts; the ones that may happen between government and people, or those caused by stereotypes. Freedom of expression, right to information to participate, we need to understand the world of information.
There have been a lot of technological and media changes over the years; people can access and share information. The question of media and information literacy (MIL) is mainly about how to improve our knowledge, prevent persuasion and be active.
Language and media
The web promotes monolingualism instead of diversity. Culture and language diversity are endangered. A video shows how languages are dying and the fact that illiteracy is all around the world as civil wars, revolutions, protests take place, thus children are out of school.
Nowadays, social network accounts are more than people as shown in the video. Thus MILID (Media and Information Literacy and Intercultural Dialogue) is needed.
Importance of Media Literacy with the emergence of new media
A video is shown about the change in information throughout the years, and then the importance of Media Literacy is discussed as it is important to prevent social alienation caused by the internet.
Social media are creating a new agenda for the media where Facebook community select articles that young people read everyday. We are creating new spaces now in the virtual world.
As for the change in the journalistic profession, journalists used to write in isolation and it was up to them to decide what is more important and what is less important. Now, journalists write together with people. They analyze and interpret what people receive about an event.
To implement the point of view of UNESCO or The European Commission, media literacy should be introduced in the curriculum (working with the teacher). Moreover, parents have important roles too as they must talk with children about new media.
Second session: “New Journalism and MIL. The transfer of power”
by professors Dr. José Manuel Tornero and Dr. Samy Tayie.
Freedom of expression is not enough for real democracy. We also need the right to information.
– The government is not the only power. There are also the powers of the business, the bank, and other powers.
How to Promote MILID?
- Institutional policy.
- Technological innovation.
- Active citizenship (participating in the public spheres).
- Creativity.
- Education (means life-long learning).
Showing some videos including the “Dove” campaign to show the power of media in stereotyping (How people can change their bodies). Stuff that doesn’t exist is shown in ads using Photoshop and so on.
New trends in journalism are discussed as journalism is changing and journalists are in need of new languages, tools and new perspectives. New technologies and mobile devices have effects on the content as there are new ways of visualization of information. There are also new interactions now where the agenda is co-produced between mass-media and social media. The structure of discourse and the interpretation of facts are negotiated between user and producer.
Now, news driven by friends and family are much more than those driven by news organizations and journalists on social network sites.
There’s a collapse of the news industry because of the technological change, loss of financial support and new concurrency. Journalists should be concerned with content not the distribution.
Second day
First session: MIL – from a librarian and information science’s Viewpoint. International Sources
by Professor Dr. María José Recoder Sellarés.
In this session, the relationship between information science and MIL was discussed.
Right now, education is about our skills and about the media. We live in a dynamic society and countries do not live in isolation. We need effective use of information as it’s an important source for the economy and “a basic component of education”.
UNESCO and IFLA (The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) are associations that define what media, information, literacy…etc. are.
First, defining important concepts used in the workshop.
- Media literacy is important because of the quantity of exposure, the vital role of information in the development of democracy, cultural participation and active citizenship. It has interdisciplinary uses with several sciences. News and even advertising are constructing reality which means that we believe what media says. Media are not innocent. For example, we buy shampoo or milk because ads say they are the best. There are also several levels of media literacy.
- Information literacy is the ability of searching and using information. Basic library and IT skills.
- A discussion started after Dr. Maria Jose suggested two issues and asked the attendees to select one of them and mention the sources they would use if they were asked to cover one of them.
Second, was a discussion about UNESCO’s work to unite the 2 concepts; media literacy and information literacy to be MIL. The importance of UNESCO’s work in this field (MIL) is “to train people with the skills needed to learn along all educational stages and throughout their entire lives”.
Third, a video showing UNESCO MIL milestones:
- Grunwald declaration 1982.
- Prague, 2003 “Towards an Information Literate Society”.
- Alexandria 2005. Alexandria proclamation on information literacy and lifelong learning.
- Paris 2007. Paris agenda or 12 recommendations for media education.
- 2008 – 2010. Ml and IL expert group meeting on curriculum for teachers:
- UNESCO promotes new strategy MIL composite concept, 2008.
- Publication of MIL curriculum for teachers UNESCO, 2010.
- Series of MIL curriculum adaptation meetings, Africa, Latin America, Caribbean and Asia. 2010 to present.
- Bangkok 2008. Towards information and media indicators.
- 2009. Guidelines for broadcasters on promoting user – generated content and MIL.
- Bangkok, 2010. Draft Global Framework of MIL indicators.
- 2011. International Media and Information Literacy and Intercultural Dialogue network of universities. UNESCO and UNAOC.
- FEZ 2011. The first international Media and Information Literacy Forum. Spearheaded by Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University. And supported by UNESCO and UNAOC.
This was followed by a discussion around the question “what are the things to do to make people information literate or media literate?”
How to administer archives and how to help people obtain information. The role of the librarian has changed nowadays as searching for information in libraries was different in the past before today’s modern technology. This requires the training of librarians because information is not only available in books, but also in digital sources such as databases. Also because the information professional role is like a base for journalistic work and it’s very important.
Second session: MIL, Citizenship, Democracy and Intercultural Dialogue
by Professor Dr. Laura Cervi.
This session is mainly about political participation and social inclusion.
How media literacy can help us to foster the quality of democracy.
- The objective of Media Literacy is people’s rights and actions.
The European Union (EU) defines Media Literacy as: the ability to access the media, understand the media and have a critical approach towards media content and create communication in a variety of contexts.
As for how to “Access” the media, the digital/ knowledge divide must be discussed. This includes the generation gap, the digital divide inside families (parents and kids), the Rural – Urban divide, the digital gender gap…and others.
Moreover, the definition of Intercultural Dialogue should also be discussed. UNESCO defined it as: the mutual understanding and respect and the equal dignity of all cultures is the essential prerequisite for constructing social cohesion, reconciliation among peoples and peace among nations. - Democracy 2.0: e-participation
This means participation through new technology. Participation meaning basically everything not only political participation, but also taking part in a democratic game and in what society is. New technologies allow us to know the opinions of a lot of people. Through e-participation, there are new ways of dialoguing with people, people’s engagement and empowering people (enforcing people’s engagement means empowering people). Examples include:- Obama’s presidential campaign.
- E-petitions.
- Iceland experience in crowsourcing (creating participation through the internet) a constitution.
- Democracy 3.0: creating new spaces
This is the future of democracy, where people can create new spaces through new technology. For example, bloggers in Egypt. People who had absolutely no interest in politics started being active.
A video on media literacy in time of crises in addition to media literacy & active citizenship. The video also shows the power of creativity against banks. - Case study: social movements, MIL and Democracy.
To see how these new movements share similarities (Arab spring, Spain, US Wall Street).
Examples of websites and social networks which facilitate participation online are shown. People can share videos, organize demonstrations and so on.
Now, there’s the question of how we can allow people to speak in the physical world. In the online world, thousands can talk, but this is difficult to implement in the physical world. This made some people create a new sign language to be used in demonstrations where each sign has a meaning.
Results:
- Rise up: awareness and putting topics on the agenda.
- People engagement.
- Engagement of new categories.
- At the beginning, all these movements encountered a rejection from mainstream media.
- New democratic forms such as signing petitions online as a way to take the petition afterwards to the parliament
- Concrete actions.
Third day
The last day was mainly about brainstorming about the ways to collaborate and how to operate the Network of Young Journalists, Information Specialists and Researchers. The attendees are divided into 3 working groups, then reports of working groups are discussed before the close up of the workshop and giving the certificates.
Following, are the reports of the working groups:
Group 1:
Reporter
Suzanne Ali
Target audience:
From 20 to 40 years old.
Names:
- The Earth’s Square. ميدان الأرض
- Beyond Borders.بلا أسوار
- Meeting Point. نقطة التقاء
- Point of Order.نقطة نظام
- Colorful Voices. أصوات ملونة
Topics:
- Interacting to offer services and ideas to other countries. For example, if Spain has a solution for a problem here in Egypt, it can offer it to the Egyptian people without political restrictions.
- User-generated content, users select the issues they want to be covered. They may select something that’s not being paid attention too (maybe all over the world).
- A look at the past of each country and presenting its history and culture. At present, discuss where we are now. It could include a comparison between what’s past and present.
Group 2
Reporter
Hatem Khedr
3 parts should be put into consideration when producing a magazine or a newspaper (either online or offline) and they are:
Audience, media people (colleagues), media tools (technology).
Names:
- One hand.
- Unified People.
- Names of famous figures such as: Ibn Khaldoun or Ibn Roshd.
- One World/ Our World.
- Intercultural Gazette.
Topics:
- Issues related to people’s suffering: starving, war victims, education, employment, democracy and freedom.
- Humanitarian successful stories (black and white), heritage, human rights development issues.
- Modern developments in media all over the world.
- Give a chance to people to express their opinions which means the readers’ feedback and whether they consider the stories attractive. The magazine should be committed to media ethics.
- Sports: not just any random story, but selecting stories related to culture or information or ethics especially with unique stories about sports.
- “Human”: a section that’s concerned with women, children and men as well.
- Lifestyle or life skills: example, language.
- Follow up stories around the world.
- News analyses or reports as the magazine is a monthly one.
- Events around the world.
- Weather.
- Culture: to deal with successful novelists or famous writers or figures.
- Life songs: famous singers.
- Theatre: arts, opera and theatre
- Tourism
- Fashion: could focus on folkloric and classic fashion.
- Successful cities all over the world.
Group 3
Reporter:
Sarah Magdy
Name:
“One World” وطن واحد
Vision
An independent online magazine that focus on the Arab world and to connect it to the whole world through interaction and dialogue between media professionals and normal audience.
Topics:
- Presenting the first pages of different newspapers; partisan, national and independent through a PDF file to allow diversity and to give the reader the opportunity to criticize.
- Give audience the opportunity, like citizen journalism, to participate with suggestions and news. It’s to be called “Your Magazine”.
- Conducting surveys and referendums about current controversial issues on a regional arena and sometimes issues on the local arena that have to with a broad sector of the audience.
- Documentaries and features.
- A photo and a comment and the comment will be left for the audience.
- “Our Community” which focuses on the values and traditions and problems of cities and small areas.
- “Culture and arts” focus on the most important book production and cultural issues between different communities and the latest production in cinema, theatre and music and link them to tourism in Arab countries.
- “Profile” focuses on influential figures and their biographies.
- Presenting the latest research in media literacy, media professionals, media development and media ethics and offer a platform for connecting mass communication colleges around the world.
- A news bar for latest conference news.
- Post videos in each page of the online magazine.
- Add a page for online radio.
Programme of Workshop of Media and Information Literacy
Day
|
Time |
Topic |
Speaker |
Sunday: 13 January, 2013 |
18:00 | Welcome Reception | |
Monday: 14th January, 2013 |
9:30 – 10:00 | Registration | |
10:00 – 10:30 | Opening Session | Vice-President of Cairo University- Dean of the Faculty of CommunicationUNESCO Representative in CairoDr. Samy Tayie (Cairo Univ.)Dr. Jose Manuel (UAB) | |
10:30 – 12:00 | First Session: The Rise of MIL and the Need for it in our Modern World. | Dr. Jose Manuel TorneroDr. Samy Tayie | |
12:00 – 12:30 | Coffee Break | ||
12:30 – 14:30 | Second Session: UNESCO’s efforts to promote MIL in the world (Teachers training Curriculum, UNITWIN). | Dr. Samy TayieDr. Jose Manuel | |
14:30 | Lunch | ||
Tuesday: 15 January, 2013 |
10:00 – 12:00 | First Session:MIL, Citizenship, Democracy and Inter-cultural dialogue. | Dr. Laura CerviProfessor, UAB |
12:00 – 12:30 | Coffee Break |