MEA’s Statement on the Government’s Response to the House of Lord’s Inquiry into Media Literacy

The Media Education Association - as a body that represents the nation’s media teachers - is disappointed to see a non-committal response from the Government to the House of Lord’s Inquiry.

The Government’s response puts too much emphasis on media literacy in relation to ‘online safety’, ‘risks’ and ‘harms’, such as misogyny and mental health, as if increasing citizens’ understanding of using media would eradicate these social issues. Focusing on solely the negative lens of media fails also to recognise the empowerment individuals get from learning how to code, curate and create with media too.

It is important that media literacy is understood as offering opportunities for critical reflection. Good media education delivers media literacy and critical thinking. 

The response puts the onus on Ofcom to resolve many of the issues identified in the Inquiry, yet Ofcom’s response clearly states that they ‘cannot deliver a comprehensive media literacy programme across the UK’.

More specifically, in relation to curriculum, the Government response dismisses the Inquiry’s recommendation to consider further integration of media texts and contexts into the GCSE English curriculum, and instead identifies various places where media literacy does appear across various subjects. Notably absent from this list of subjects however is media studies. 

Whilst, we now know that the Department of Education is taking the lead on developing the new curriculum, of which media literacy will be integral, the Government’s response demonstrates the continual fragmentation of policy-level thinking on this subject. There are eight references to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), four to Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), and three to Ofsted—but none to the Department for Education (DfE). Media literacy, in a school context, needs to be led by the DfE, but with coordination with the work already done across these different departments. Children and young people who should have a universal right to explore issues related to media literacy within the curriculum as an entitlement.

This leadership from DfE should encompass the most explicit expressions of media literacy - accredited forms of media study at Levels 2 and 3 – through to more generalised forms of media education spanning from early years through to Sixth Form provision within other subjects. The MEA is well placed to coordinate and lead initiatives to inform Initial Teacher Education (ITE) and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in media literacy, drawing on decades of knowledge and experience in both pedagogies for teaching about the media literacy and in leading staff development on how to ‘teach the media’.

The response suggests that support for Initial Teacher Training and established teachers for professional development in media literacy is available through Oak National Academy, The National Centre for Computing Education, and ‘Educate Against Hate’, dismissing any need for further commitment in funding or resources to this area.

Perhaps the greatest disappointment for us is the complete occlusion of the methodologies, knowledge, pedagogies and expertise within media education and of media teachers, who continue to be ignored in these policy-level conversations whilst they are leaders in how to teach with, through and about media. The Government would do well to consider developing strategies for how to harness this vast and diverse field of expertise to enable existing best practice in media education to inform broader, cross-disciplinary media literacy programmes in schools, colleges and universities.

For example, in developing Critical AI literacy, media educators have a particular role to play as their pedagogical expertise equips them to grapple with how information and knowledge are mediated through technology—within institutional, representational, and ideological contexts of production and reception.

This Inquiry involved extensive contributions from a wide range of experts including the Media Education Association.