In the rapidly changing world where the “human weapon” can be buying and selling information, media literacy is becoming more and more critical, particulalry for schoolage children who are prone to using technolgies almost all day long. Often flooded with information and without any proper skill to identify fact from misinformation or fiction, it is very difficult for schoolchildren to determine accuracy and legitiamcy of the source, and here is when a mentor, a teacher, or an expert comes to help. Organized disinformation, misinformation, and propaganda certainly bear one purpose – to manipulate public opinion, and particularly – younger generation and influence on their mindset by misleading it.
Media literacy for public education in Armenia and Georgia has become more essential since the COVID-19 outbreak, and in Armenia – particularly during and after the 2020 Artsakh war. It has even become more important for safety and security considering the “information war” diligently planned and propagated by Azerbaijan starting from September 2020 and highlighted by the local non-governmental organizations and media literacy experts. Media literacy is ultimately needed in public education to recognize manipulative language and propaganda, to be able to analyze information critically, and lastly to engage consciously with media consumption be it social media content and/or media outlet. Through the Study a few media literacy techniques have been identified as widely used in both countries.
Media Literacy: Subject, Competency, Approaches in Armenia and Georgia
Unlike the western countries, such as the US or Canada, where media literacy classes have long become integrated in school curricula, neither Armenia nor Georgia have a visionary approach about the subject on the public education level.
Gota Chanturia who has been working in public and private schools for a few years to understand the gaps in public education notes that media literacy is one of the key competencies highlighted by the national curricula, but there’s no separate document or vision on it. Korila – a private school in the suburbs of Tbilisi where he has been working for the last two years now, has tried to teach students how to identify false content using their own critical thinking and simple fact-checking techniques.
Ana Kintsurashvili and Mariam Pichkhaia took part in a short training course developed and held by the Tbilisi based Media Development Foundations (MDF), and later on they shared the knowledge with schoolchildren. However, this has never been a part of school curricula.
“Just like critical thinking is part of the curricula, the same applies to media literacy. It is called a “key competence” and the school is there to support children to develop that. This applies to every teacher and every subject. Media literacy skills or competences could be developed with the help of any of the teachers. So, it is a general goal, a key competence for the school to develop in children,” stated Gota Chanturia adding that continuous teaching of media literacy would have developed positive media habits among schoolchildren.
In 2018, the Communication Commission (Regulatory authority of broadcasting and electronic communications field) that is responsible for media literacy policy implementation in Georgia, developed a media literacy development strategy and a three-year action plan. However, the policy documents received criticism from Non-Governmental Organizations stating that the document did not address the existing challenges, including security and hybrid threats from Russia. In addition, the documents struggled to meet the needs of vulnerable target groups such as ethnic minorities who mostly rely on foreign informational sources due to the language barrier. In 2022 the Communication Commission together with the Ministry of Education of Georgia and in partnership with UNICEF launched a new Project that aims to implement media
literacy in formal education. According to the Communication Commission an educational standard of media literacy, a manual and a corresponding training module will be developed and according to the new resources created within the project, teachers will be retrained.
Media literacy has long been an extracurricular activity in Armenia as well designed and implemented by a number of NGOs, Media Initiative Center of Yerevan being the most active one.
Lusik Aghababyan, a social worker and the Executive Director of “Tavush” Foundation from borderline Berd region, Tavush Province of Armenia, noted that they have a “hobby group” for high school students who get together twice a month and discuss an article or a social media post. “We have participated in a number of media literacy training and have even hosted experts to teach students to apply critical thinking to media content. It included lessons and debates on detecting bias in reporting and applying fact-checking techniques to news stories,” she said adding that such extracurricular classes were productive however to have a more efficient and long-lasting impact on younger generation, such course should probably be continuous.
Vahe Khachikyan, the coordinator of Vanadzor Infotun, who has been rigorously promoting media literacy projects in Lori and other provinces of Armenia for years now stated that there should be a collective-based approach of raising media literacy in public education, and the State should play an integral role.
“Our year-long efforts in helping young generation differentiate disinformation and propaganda from real news through different non-formal training, discussions and debates come to show that we have achieved some results for years, and it was more apparent during COVID-19 and the 2020 Artsakh war. However, NGOs and international organizations are the primary institutions of implementing media literacy projects in Armenia, meaning that we have limited resources in this regard. To have a broader impact, we need to have the Government and the State be involved,” he commented adding that working with international partners can also be effective based on their experience with neighboring countries and countries of Eastern Europe.
The lack of systematic implementation of media literacy teaching in Armenia has been a huge challenge in public education for years now, meaning that there is no national concept of media literacy, and it is not included in the state educational programs yet. Moreover, there is a gap in training school teachers and/or pedagogues who could have later shared the knowledge with schoolchildren. Neither is there a comprehensive study on media consumption, preferences and needs of the Armenians in general and children in particular.
For more than three decades, Media Initiative Center in Yerevan has been promoting the concept of media literacy particularly in the field of public education, and like the MDF in Georgia, MIC often holds training courses for teachers, provide them with manual and computer games created by the organization, demonstrates different tools to check the information etc.
“Such training or non-formal classes can be successful in protecting schoolchildren and particularly vulnerable children against the effects of disinformation because the techniques, such as fact checking, photo filtering, computer games etc. effect in changing children’s attitudes towards vaccination, different stereotyping and violence in advertising, as they are able to identify false messaging,” said Lusik Aghababyan.
Conclusion:
Despite the fact that technological development in both countries which has somehow changed the perception of traditional media environment in both countries citing on the facts that people have variety of sources of information nowadays, and are able to create and share information, they also increase the probability for spreading false or biased information. Finally, there are NGOs and international organizations that work on raising the level of media literacy among younger generation, in public education particularly, through different online and offline approaches.
However, there is no cohesive strategic approach adopted by the Government in this regard, neither by the public organizations to address challenges and issues connected with media literacy of societies in both countries, neither there is a strategic national plan in the context of formal education.
Author: Margarita Arakelyan
The blog is produced within the Economic Policy Research Center’s (EPRC) project ACTION -Activating Civil Society Organizations through Training and Inclusive Operational Network. The project is implemented with the support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.
The views expressed are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of EPRC and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.
References:
1. https://www.comcom.ge/ge/yvela-siaxle/comcom-ma-unicef-isa-da-usaid-ismediawignierebis-ertobliv-konferenciashi-monawileoba-miigo.page
2. https://www.mdfgeorgia.ge/eng/view-library/217/
3. https://rm.coe.int/-en
4. Handbook Eurasia Partnership Foundation: “Critical Thinking”
