Media liter­acy as a key to a resi­li­ent society

The repu­ta­ble repre­sen­ta­ti­ves of the media are facing a tough time finan­ci­ally. Barely a week goes by without another publi­shing house announ­cing job cuts. And it’s easier than ever to access all kinds of sources of infor­ma­tion online. It’s not a recent reali­sa­tion that our use of the media has drasti­cally chan­ged. These days, people tend to turn to social media plat­forms, websites and strea­ming services to stay up to date. Against this back­drop, we seriously have to ask oursel­ves whether deli­be­rate attempts to spread fake news have an impact on society. 

This is exactly what Fairm­edia is fight­ing against. The asso­cia­tion advo­ca­ting for fair jour­na­lism and demo­cracy is on a mission to reveal exactly how fake news works through Fairm­edia­WATCH. It demons­tra­tes how mani­pu­la­ted images and fake news are also disse­mi­na­ted in Switz­er­land and expo­ses the methods used to turn infor­ma­tion into disinformation.

Mani­pu­la­tion is so much easier these days. Tech­no­lo­gi­cal advan­ces in AI are making so much straight­for­ward and reali­sti­cally so.

AI capa­bi­lity

At this point, it’s still hard for us to predict what risks will come with fake news being crea­ted by AI. There’s not much evidence to go on yet. But Guido Keel has alre­ady iden­ti­fied one defi­nite danger. ‘AI poses a threat because it’s jeopar­di­sing the busi­ness model of media compa­nies, which is alre­ady imper­fect as it is. By revo­lu­tio­ni­s­ing the way things are done, funda­men­tal chan­ges are requi­red that are nothing short of disrup­tive.’ He draws paral­lels with Google and Face­book chan­ging the way people consu­med media 20 and 10 years ago and the way media compa­nies respon­ded to those chan­ges. ‘We tend to welcome change in the hope that it’ll bring us bene­fits, but it inevi­ta­bly comes with all kinds of chal­lenges too,’ he says. ‘The story is repea­ting itself with AI but on a much bigger scale.’ Tradi­tio­nal media compa­nies need to focus on adop­ting the right approach to the tech­no­logy. AI is here. It’s going to be used. But the ways in which it’s used aren’t yet set in stone. AI is likely to open up oppor­tu­ni­ties too – and that could even apply to jour­na­lists. That is, as long as the tech­no­logy comple­ments their jour­na­lism work rather than repla­cing it. 

For him, the accu­racy of content is still dubious at least some of the time. Media consump­tion has chan­ged and that can be explai­ned largely by the sheer volume of new chan­nels. When it comes to the source behind the infor­ma­tion, there is some­ti­mes more and some­ti­mes less trans­pa­rency. With so many chan­nels now, the barriers to disse­mi­na­ting infor­ma­tion and disin­for­ma­tion have been lowered.

Key skill

‘It has become easier to publish content,’ says Andrew Holland. ‘The media have become less important when it comes to sharing infor­ma­tion and content, which is weak­e­ning the power they have.’ He sees this as an oppor­tu­nity and a threat. Social discourse can become more diverse and free if we’re no longer rely­ing on a few media compa­nies to decide what is and isn’t published. ‘At the same time, all the new voices joining in with the conver­sa­tion and the rules of jour­na­lism being broken down are enough to leave you feeling disori­en­ta­ted,’ he says. People are deal­ing with this situa­tion differ­ently depen­ding on their age. Every gene­ra­tion has their own ways of acces­sing infor­ma­tion and their own barriers stop­ping them from acces­sing infor­ma­tion. Older people some­ti­mes struggle to get to grips with new tech­no­logy, while youn­ger people don’t often access news in the tradi­tio­nal ways. ‘You don’t come across many young people who subscribe to a news­pa­per or listen to the local news when they’re eating their break­fast,’ says Jere­mias Schul­t­hess. This state of affairs worries him. He belie­ves we should be concer­ned about any poten­tial decline in how infor­med people are about what’s happe­ning in poli­tics and society. That would make it even easier to spread fake news. This is why it’s so important that we give people the trai­ning they need to improve their media liter­acy. Mari­anne Läder­ach agrees that this is a sensi­ble course of action for society: ‘There’s so much infor­ma­tion and news from diffe­rent sources out there – espe­ci­ally on social media. People need to think carefully about how to deal with this over­whel­ming barrage of infor­ma­tion and how to ques­tion it criti­cally to form their own opini­ons. Prac­tice makes perfect.’

Trust­wor­thy source

Helping people improve their media liter­acy is chal­len­ging on so many levels. This trai­ning has to cover more than just using the tech­no­logy and being fami­liar with trust­wor­thy media outlets. Guido Keel belie­ves that the atti­tude also has to be right. ‘Young people might be better equip­ped to spot fake news and assess infor­ma­tion shared on social media nowa­days. But that doesn’t stop them from absor­bing infor­ma­tion at random or focu­sing on media coverage about issues that aren’t all that rele­vant to society.’ Some people are no doubt wonde­ring about their own media liter­acy level. Merca­tor, SRG, Medi­en­in­sti­tut and Poli­tools laun­ched newstest.ch earlier this year for that very reason. It allows ever­yone to test their own media liter­acy. Without a doubt, media compa­nies need to take media liter­acy seriously. They risk even more than just losing their readers and their own commer­cial success. A lack of media liter­acy has the poten­tial to under­mine their autho­rity. The credi­bi­lity of their infor­ma­tion is at risk of being called into ques­tion. And then our demo­cra­tic society will be without a relia­ble shared pool of know­ledge. ‘Any increase in vulnerabi­lity along these lines is a real danger for our func­tio­ning demo­cra­tic society,’ says Mari­anne Läderach. 

As tradi­tio­nal media outlets lose their autho­rity, it beco­mes even easier for disin­for­ma­tion to be spread and accepted. ‘As the autho­rity of the media dwind­les, the path is clear for others to move into a posi­tion of power. And then it beco­mes easier for mani­pu­la­tive content to be shared,’ adds Jere­mias Schul­t­hess. He belie­ves that tradi­tio­nal media – online and print are both expli­citly included in that descrip­tion – should ideally be buil­ding resi­li­ence in society. ‘In this context, I would say that a resi­li­ent society is one that can with­stand exter­nal disrup­tion. One exam­ple of exter­nal disrup­tion in a demo­cracy would be a rise in extreme autho­ri­ta­rian tenden­cies. The media have to faci­li­tate a cons­truc­tive dialo­gue within main­stream society to avoid any such situa­tions.’ The loss of autho­rity has even more serious conse­quen­ces for a demo­cra­tic society because, as Guido Keel points out, this affects the autho­rity of the media and various social insti­tu­ti­ons. ‘This leads to frag­men­ta­tion, with dialo­gue between diffe­rent groups being jeopar­di­sed or strai­ned – all the more so in the context of deli­be­rate disin­for­ma­tion and hate speech.’ In normal times, the issues asso­cia­ted with this kind of frag­men­ta­tion may be hard to spot. But the risks to society make them­sel­ves known at times of crisis. ‘When society is hit by hard times, open social discourse is abso­lut­ely essen­tial in over­co­ming the crisis,’ says Guido Keel. ‘If the option of social discourse that invol­ves as many people as possi­ble is gone and all that remains is pola­ri­sed inter­ac­tion in segre­ga­ted bubbles, there’s no longer any chance of common under­stan­ding. And yet that’s a requi­re­ment for buil­ding resi­li­ence in society.’ The media need to take action. It’s their respon­si­bi­lity to insti­gate the social discourse. And it’s in their gift to learn from all rele­vant groups in society by docu­men­ting their ideas and perspec­ti­ves and presen­ting them in rela­tion to one another. ‘If you ask me, this role of the media as a forum is key to social cohe­sion,’ he says. 

Shared pool of knowledge

It follows that it’s in a society’s inte­rest that its members absorb a certain amount of infor­ma­tion. What a society needs is a shared pool of know­ledge that faci­li­ta­tes discourse, dialo­gue and debate. That is the basis for a resi­li­ent society. ‘If the popu­la­tion is well infor­med, people will be better equip­ped to see past attempts to mani­pu­late and scare tactics,’ says Andrew Holland. This respon­si­bi­lity falls to the media. ‘Media outlets that rese­arch and contex­tua­lise in line with estab­lished prin­ci­ples of jour­na­lism are helping to build resi­li­ence in society. They are also encou­ra­ging the public to form opini­ons by giving infor­ma­tion the right context and weight, ther­eby making it easier for people to get invol­ved in demo­cra­tic society,’ he says. ‘Quality media commu­ni­ca­ti­ons can be deli­vered in tradi­tio­nal and new formats alike.’ 

Editor’s note: the author is the Co-Presi­dent of Fairmedia.