Guna Spuravalle 12 000 euroa jatko-opintoapurahaa

There is a growing need for rising critical attitude and understanding towards the technological landscape nowadays dominated by a small number of large global companies. Such a situation demands new approaches to media education focusing on rising individual’s awareness about his presence in highly commercialized digital media environment and creating understanding about data driven business models.

As suggested by Beckett and Livingstone (2018) – it is important to build citizens capacities to navigate contemporary information environment as both – users and producers. In the frame of this PhD, it is assumed that in new digital media ecosystem citizens are not only users and producers of information, but also, they are transformed into gatekeepers, verifiers (fact-checkers) and distributors of any kind of information, including misinformation, disinformation and mal-information. All of these new roles bring new responsibilities and require new knowledge and skills from citizens. Different solutions in academic and policy discourses are suggested to meet these challenges. Proposed measures can be systematized in four groups:

1. selfregulation of the platform companies;
2. legislative solutions from governments;
3. support to media users through established institutions such as schools and libraries and legacy media;
4. people’s own responsibility for assessing and critical evaluation of information.

This PhD aims to contribute related to last two groups of suggested solutions focusing on platform awareness as significant aspect of citizens digital media literacy and looking for drivers of this field with a capacity to support media education, such as libraries, legacy media and young people.