Keywords
EU
UNESCO
Frameworks
MIL
DIGCOMP
How to Cite
License
Copyright (c) 2017 Dietmar Janetzko
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
Over recent years, international organisations like the EU and UNESCO have set up a number of proposals, models and frameworks that seek (i) to map and to conceptualize digital literacy and related concepts, e. g. information, digital or media literacy, digital competence, digital skills and (ii) to formulate policies and recommendations based on the conceptualizations developed. The resulting frameworks, such as Digital Competence (DigComp) developed by the EU, or Media and Information Literacy (MIL) developed by UNESCO, have a strong formative power on a global scale. Affected are policies, laws, regulations, research activities, and academic disciplines like media pedagogy and mindsets. Do these frameworks consider the effects of disruptive attempts by digital media to intervene in public debates e. g. social bots, fake news and other manifestations of biased or false information online? Do they offer avenues for reflection and action to address them? Guided by these questions, this paper studies the flagship frameworks on digital education of the EU and UNESCO, DigComp and MIL. It finds biases in both frameworks. To different degrees, both tend to overemphasize the practical and instrumental use of digital literacy.
References
Ala-Mutka, Kirsti, Yves Punie, and Christine Redecker. 2008. «Digital Competence for Lifelong Learning». Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. http://ftp.jrc.es/EURdoc/JRC48708.TN.pdf.
Ala-Mutka, Kirsti. 2011. «Mapping Digital Competence: Towards a Conceptual Understanding». Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. http://ftp.jrc.es/EURdoc/JRC67075_TN.pdf.
Bawden, David. 2008. «Origins and Concepts of Digital Literacy». In Digital Literacies: Concepts, Policies and Practices, edited by Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel, 30:17–32. New York: Peter Lang. http://sites.google.com/site/colinlankshear/DigitalLiteracies.pdf.
Bessi, Alessandro, and Emilio Ferrara. 2016. «Social Bots Distort the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election Online Discussion». First Monday 21 (11). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v21i11.7090.
Chaffee, Ian. 2016. «Who’s to Blame for Fake News and What Can Be Done About It?» USC News Dec 15th. http://news.usc.edu/113738/whos-to-blame-for-fake-news-and-what-can-be-done-about-it/.
Cooke, Nicole A. 2017. «Posttruth, Truthiness, and Alternative Facts: Information Behavior and Critical Information Consumption for a New Age». The Library Quarterly 87 (3): 211–21. https://doi.org/10.1086/692298.
Commission of the European Communities. 1995. «White paper on education and training – teaching and learning towards the learning society». http://europa.eu/documents/comm/white_papers/pdf/com95_590_en.pdf.
Connolly, Kate, Angelique Chrisafis, Poppy McPherson, Stephanie Kirchgaessner, Benjamin Haas, Dominic Phillips, Elle Hunt, and Michael Safi. 2016. «Fake news: an insidious trend that›s fast becoming a global problem». The Guardian Dec 2nd. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/02/fake-news-facebook-us-election-around-the-world.
Carretero Gomez, Stephanie, Riina Vuorikari, and Yves Punie. 2017. «DigComp 2.1: The Digital Competence Framework for Citizens with Eight Proficiency Levels and Examples of Use». EUR - Scientific and Technical Research Reports. Publications Office of the European Union. JRC106281. https://doi.org/10.2760/38842. http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC106281/web-digcomp2.1pdf_(online).pdf.
Dankert, Kevin, and Stephan Dreyer. 2017. «Social Bots – Grenzenloser Einfluss auf den Meinungsbildungsprozess?» Kommunikation und Recht 2: 73–77.
Delvaux, Mady. 2017. «Report with Recommendations to the Commission on Civil Law Rules on Robotics». European Parliament. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A8-2017-0005+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN.
Eshet-Alkalai, Yoram. 2004. «Digital Literacy: A Conceptual Framework for Survival Skills in the Digital era». Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia 13 (1): 93–106. https://www.learntechlib.org/p/4793.
European Committee for Standardization. 2014. European e-Competence Framework 3.0. A common European Framework for ICT Professionals in all Industry Sectors. 16234:2014 (Part 1-4). European Committee for Standardization (CEN), http://www.ecompetences.eu/e-cf-3-0-download/.
European Parliament and the Council. 2006. «Recommendation of the European Parliament and the Council of 18 December 2006 on key competencies for lifelong learning». Recommendation 12. Brussels: Official Journal of the European Union. Vol. 30. European Parliament; the Council. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:32006H0962.
Ferrara, Emilio, Onur Varol, Clayton Davis, Filippo Menczer, and Alessandro Flammini. 2016. «The Rise of Social Bots». Communications of the ACM 59 (7): 96–104. https://doi.org/10.1145/2818717.
Ferrari, Anusca. 2012. «Digital Competence in Practice: An Analysis of Frameworks». Report EUR 25351 EN. JRC Scientific; Policy Reports; Publications Office of the European Union Luxembourg. https://doi.org/10.2791/82116. http://ftp.jrc.es/EURdoc/JRC68116.pdf.
Ferrari, Anusca, Yves Punie, Barbara N Brečko, and Institute for Prospective Technological Studies. 2013. «DIGCOMP: A Framework for Developing and Understanding Digital Competence in Europe». Luxembourg: Publications Office. https://doi.org/10.2788/52966. http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC83167/lb-na-26035-enn.pdf.
Gilster, Paul. 1997. Digital Literacy. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Grek, Sotiria. 2016. «Educating Europe: A Story of Shifts and Grand Old Myths». Article No 71. Edinburgh: European Futures. http://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/files/23395501/European_Futures_Article_No_71_Grek.pdf.
Ilomäki, Liisa, Sami Paavola, Minna Lakkala, and Anna Kantosalo. 2016. «Digital Competence - an Emergent Boundary Concept for Policy and Educational Research». Education and Information Technologies 21 (3): 655–79. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-014-9346-4.
Janssen, José, Slavi Stoyanov, Anusca Ferrari, Yves Punie, Kees Pannekeet, and Peter Sloep. 2013. «Experts' Views on Digital Competence: Commonalities and Differences». Computers & Education 68 (Oktober): 473–81. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2013.06.008.
Kellner, Douglas, and Jeff Share. 2007a. «Critical Media Literacy, Democracy, and the Reconstruction of Education». In Media literacy: a reader, edited by Donaldo Pereira Macedo and Shirley R. Steinberg, 3–23. New York: Peter Lang. https://cxarchive.gseis.ucla.edu/xchange/critical-uses-of-media-and-technology/xpress/critical-media-literacy-democracy-and-the-reconstruction-of-education/.
Kellner, Douglas, and Jeff Share. 2007. «Critical Media Literacy: Crucial Policy Choices for a Twenty-First-Century Democracy». Policy Futures in Education 5 (1): 59–69. https://doi.org/10.2304/pfie.2007.5.1.59.
Lanham, Richard A. 1995. «Digital Literacy». Scientific American 273 (3). New York: Munn & Co.: 198–99.
Lankshear, Colin, and Michele Knobel, eds. 2008. Digital Literacies. Concepts, Policies and Practices. Vol. 30. New Literacies and Digital Epistemologies. New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, Oxford, Wien: Peter Lang. http://sites.google.com/site/colinlankshear/DigitalLiteracies.pdf.
Lee, Alice, Jesús Lau, Toni Carbo, and Natalia Gendina, eds. 2013. Conceptual Relationship of Information Literacy and Media Literacy in Knowledge Societies. Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). http://www.unesco.org/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/CI/pdf/wsis/WSIS_10_Event/WSIS_-_Series_of_research_papers_-_Conceptual_Relationship_between_Information_Literacy_and_Media_Literacy.pdf.
Iordache Catalina, Baelden Dorien, and Mariën Ilse. 2016. «Reconsidering Digital Skills: A Theoretical Questioning of the Skills That Define e-Inclusion». iMinds-SMIT, Vrije Universiteit Brussel. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.1.3229.4007.
Mettler, Suzanne. 2016. «The Policyscape and the Challenges of Contemporary Politics to Policy Maintenance». Perspectives on Politics 14 (02): 369–90. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592716000074.
Mills, Kathy Ann. 2010. «A Review of the ‹Digital Turn› in the New Literacy Studies». Review of Educational Research 80 (2): 246–71. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654310364401.
Morris, Meredith Ringel, Scott Counts, Asta Roseway, Aaron Hoff, and Julia Schwarz. 2012. «Tweeting Is Believing?: Understanding Microblog Credibility Perceptions». In Proceedings of the ACM 2012 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 441-450. Seattle, Washington: ACM Press. https://doi.org/10.1145/2145204.2145274.
Schwarz, Gretchen. 2003. «Renewing the Humanities through Media Literacy». Journal of Curriculum & Supervision, 19(1): 44-53. http://www.ascd.org/publications/jcs/fall2003/Renewing-the-Humanities-Through-Media-Literacy.aspx.
Seargeant, Philip & Tagg, Caroline. 2016. «Fake News: The Solution Is Education, Not Regulation». Times Higher Education, Dec 29th, https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/fake-news-solution-education-not-regulation.
Søby, Morten. 2015. «Digital competence - a password to a new interdisciplinary field». Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy 10 (Jubileumsnummer): 4–7. https://www.idunn.no/dk/2015/Jubileumsnummer/digital_competence_-_a_password_to_a_new_interdisciplinary_.
Peter Stordy. 2015. «Taxonomy of literacies». Journal of Documentation 71 (3): 456–76. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-10-2013-0128.
Telecentre Europe. 2014. Digital Competence and Employability. Dec 15th. http://archive.telecentre-europe.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/TE_DIGCOMP-policy-paper_FINAL_PDF.pdf.
UNESCO. 2011. «Towards Media and Information Literacy Indicators». UNESCO. http://www.unesco.org/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/CI/pdf/unesco_mil_indicators_background_document_2011_final_en.pdf.
UNESCO. 2013. «Global Media and Information Literacy Assessment Framework: Country Readiness and Competencies». UNESCO. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002246/224655e.pdf.
UNESCO. 2017. «UNESCO and You: Participate now in Expert Survey on Media and Information Literacy». UNESCO. http://en.unesco.org/news/unesco-and-you-participate-now-expert-survey-media-and-information-literacy.
Vuorikari, Riina, Yves Punie, Stephanie Carretero, and Godelieve Van Den Brande. 2016. «DigComp 2.0: The Digital Competence Framework for Citizens. Update Phase 1: the Conceptual Reference Model». JRC Working Paper JRC101254. Joint Research Centre (Seville site). https://doi.org/10.2791/11517. http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC101254/jrc101254_digcomp%202.0%20the%20digital%20competence%20framework%20for%20citizens.%20update%20phase%201.pdf.
Woolley, Samuel C. 2016. «Automating Power: Social Bot Interference in Global Politics». First Monday 21 (4). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v21i4.6161. http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/6161.