A call for media freedom literacy to support media freedom and  pluralism

Released in April 2024, the report “Fostering Media freedom literacy across the OSCE region” stresses the urgent need for citizens to acknowledge the critical importance of media for functioning democracies. The authors, Martina Chapman and Asja Rokša-Zubčević, commissioned by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, explore in this report the concept of media freedom literacy and provide recommendations and illustrations on what can be done to strengthen media freedom literacy.  

This report is part of a project initiated by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the media (RFoM) aimed at supporting policy-making processes, cross-sectoral collaboration and public awareness of media freedom literacy in the OSCE participating States.

The OSCE RFoM defines Media Freedom Literacy (MFL) as: 

the "knowledge and skills that enhance citizens' ability to understand and value the democratic functions of the media and other information providers, online and offline, and the importance of a pluralistic, well-functioning media landscape serving the public interest, including critical evaluation and ethical production of information and media content".

Based on this definition, the authors identify four competency areas and skills related to MFL:

• Understanding and valuing the democratic functions of the media and other information providers

• Valuing the importance of information pluralism

• Critically evaluating content

• Recognising and valuing the production of information and media content based on journalistic standards

Focus on the role of media regulators

The report also underlines the key role that media regulators can play and provides several recommendations for media regulatory authorities:

• Adopting a coordination role to support a national cross-sector network

• Ensuring media ownership transparency

• Delivering regulatory literacy to the public

• Supporting plurality of news online and sustainability of news providers

• Working with platforms to reduce the impact of their design choices

• Helping the academic sector to identify and fulfil gaps in knowledge

• Ensuring that timely and effective remedies exist for media whose editorial freedom is threatened by online platforms policies

• Monitoring and publicly sharing the levels of media concentration and pluralism 

Furthermore, the authors call for a regulatory framework of public interest content prominence, under the supervision of media regulators.

A solid base to build on

Generally, the authors agree that in most countries, the existing legislative and regulatory framework, along with emerging legal obligations for media regulators, media stakeholders and online services providers, are a solid base to introduce media freedom literacy within the current media literacy framework.

A step further now needs to be taken to  enhance more structured and impactful outcomes. To this end, the authors call for a concerted effort starting with a recognition of the importance of media freedom literacy for our societies and an accurate visibility and resources given to media freedom literacy within national and regional media literacy plans, strategies or policies.

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• "Fostering media freedom literacy across the OSCE region", by Martina Chapman & Asja Rokša-Zubčević, April 2024

Source: OSCE RFOM website