The European Commission has launched a Call for Proposals called “Media literacy for all.”

“Media literacy” is an umbrella expression including all  kind of technical, cognitive, social, civic and creative capacities that allow a citizen to access the media, to have a critical understanding of the media and to interact with it.

All these capacities enable the citizen to participate in the economic, social and cultural aspects of society as well as to play an active role in the democratic process. “Media” is to be understood in a broad way: including all kind of media (television, radio, press) and through all kind of channels (traditional, internet, social media).

Media literacy is inherent to a healthy democracy and essential to respond to a changing and increasingly complex media landscape due to the digital revolution as well as to a change of behaviour and attitude on the part of citizens.

The objective of the project

Although it is possible to deal some of the matters related to this complex environment through regulation, it is necessary to complement it with measures empowering the user to be critical of his sources of information and of the media content. This is precisely what media literacy means and it is the reason why the European Commission has launched  a call for proposals of pilot projects on Media Literacy for all.

The pilot project is intended to develop actions aimed at increasing the critical thinking towards the media among citizens of all ages as well as to test the feasibility and usefulness of such actions. Critical thinking includes, among other skills, the ability to distinguish information from propaganda, to deconstruct media communication and to interact with social media in a mindful way.

The projects target citizens of all age groups and some of the actions would address minorities, low-skilled people and people at risk of being socially marginalised. The European Commission expects projects to cover at least 5 Member States, with a minimum coverage of 3 EU official languages. As mentioned above,  the concept of media in this calls covers all kinds of media and through all kinds of channels.

The deadline for submitting applications is 14 October 2016 17:00 Brussels time.

More information on  this call can be found on the DG Connect’s Website.