Announcements and reports

Parents' meta-reflexivity benefits media education of children

Tea Golob, Matej Makarovič & Mateja Rek are proud to share our latest article entitled »Parents' meta-reflexivity benefits media education of children«, publisher in Comunicar – a scientific journal specialized in communication and education, ICT, audiences, new languages. In active indexations in 2022, Comunicar is top worldwide: 2nd in the world in SCOPUS and 10th in the world in JCR (top 1% and 7% in the world; percentile 99% and 93%).

The hypothesis that meta-reflexivity is one of the comparatively most significant factors affecting parents' media literacy in terms of (1) limiting screen exposure, (2) accompanying children during media exposure and (3) discussing media content with children is confirmed.

Happy to share the paper (open access): https://lnkd.in/eYwf3PDm

Report on roundtable: Educating digital natives to be smart about using media - Erasmus+ Jean Monnet MELI Module

The round table took place on the 7th of March 2023. It was a hybrid event, where the speakers and participants were present in the classroom at the The School of Advanced Social Studies in Ljubljana, as well as via Zoom. The roundtable created an opportunity for knowledge transfer, debate and networking, bringing together MELI Module’s target groups on a national and local level.

Find the report here (click):

Report on roundtable: Challenges of tackling disinformation and fake news - Erasmus+ Jean Monnet MELI Module

The round table took place on the 17th of March 2022. It was a hybrid event, where the speakers and participants were present in the classroom at the Faculty of Media, as well as via Zoom. The roundtable created an opportunity for knowledge transfer, debate and networking, bringing together MELI Module’s target groups on a national and local level.

Find the report here (click):

New book by prof. dr. Mateja Rek: Media Education and Literacy in Slovenia

The widespread use of digital media brings many challenges in the field of online security, health, the ability to participate in a variety of social and economic activities. In the digital world, people need specific skills that enable them to create useful media habits and develope resilience to the negative phenomena of the digital media landscape, such as non-chemical addictions, hate speech, fake news or misinformation.

Based on many years of research on media literacy, prof. dr. Mateja Rek describes in the book how Slovene society (within our formal education system or civil society activities) and individuals (such as parents, educators) face the challenges of media education.

Chapters 3. (Fake news, misinformation and sensationalism), 5. (Education »digital Indigenous Peoples ”for smart use of the media) and 9. (Media literacy and active citizenship) are co - financed by the European Union Erasmus + program, decision number: 620190, of the Executive Agency for education, audiovisual and culture on the award of grants Jean Monnet activities under the Erasmus + program. Project number: 620190-EPP-1-2020-1-SI- EPPJMO-MODULE. The European Commission's support for this publication does not constitute any confirmation of the content, which only expresses the views of the authors. The Commission cannot be held responsible for any use of the information the publication contains.

The book is available at:
https://www.primus.si/medijska-vzgoja-in-pismenost-v-sloveniji/.

Report on roundtable: Media Literacy and Active Citizenship - Erasmus+ Jean Monnet MELI Module: Media Literacy and Active Citizenship

The round table on Media Literacy and Active Citizenship (Erasmus+ Jean Monnet MELI Module) took place on March 4th, 2021, as a part of an annual academic winter camp, organised by the Faculty of Applied Social Studies in Nova Gorica, together with the Faculty of Information Studies in Novo mesto and the Faculty of Media in Ljubljana. Due to the rules of the meeting in accordance with the measures against Covid-19, the round table took place in the online environment Zoom. The event counted with a large number of listeners, more then 50 participants were present throughout the session.

Find the report here (click).

First Slovenian Jean Monnet Day

The 12th Slovenian Social Science Conference and the 1st Slovenian Jean Monnet Day took place on December 7th, 2020.

In the context of the conference, prof. dr. Mateja Rek held a presentation called Media literacy and Active Citizenship in the EU, within the scope of Erasmus+ Jean Monnet MELI Module. She adressed the following issues:

- How can increase in digitalisation of communication and relationship building among people also contribute to active citizenship in the EU?
- Can active civic participation in a digital environment contribute to bridging the gap between policy-making on the EU level and its citizens?
- Do media literacy skills of citizens contribute to their active participation in political processes?

The event took place via Zoom and was open to members and students of School od Advanced Social Sciences (SASS), as well as to broad public.

European Union and Media Literacy

In 2020, the Council of the European Union adopted the “Conclusions on media literacy in an ever-changing world”. »These conclusions represent a significant step in how media literacy is viewed at a policy level across the European Union and are an important development that has implications for media literacy policy, funding and visibility as they contain a series of proposed measures and activities which may be taken up in certain area by Member States of the European Union and the European Commission« (Tomljenović, 2020).

In this document, media literacy is at the heart of media policy. As such, it is considered crucial for protecting audiences, ensuring pluralism and for combating disinformation.
This new era, where media and technologies are always changing, has also brought increasing amounts of disinformation, manipulations and hate speech.

»Citizens of all ages need to be able to access, select, understand and make sophisticated and responsible use of information and of different kinds of media, both professional and user-generated, on all kinds of channels, and distribution or communication platforms. Taken together, these abilities constitute what it means to be media literate« (Tomljenović, 2020).
The document imposes a few changes, especially regarding media literacy. The conclusions highlight the need to develop new models of lifelong learning in media literacy for all ages and to enable all citizens to learn the skills needed for understanding and operating within the highly complex media world.

(Source: Robert Tomljenović, Vice-President of Electronic Media Council, Agency for Electronic Media, Croatia 2020 via https://media-and-learning.eu/type/featured-articles/european-union-conclusions-place-media-literacy-at-the-heart-of-media-policy/).

Research work of our professors published in the prestigious scientific journal Comunicar

A scientific article, written by the following authors, associate prof. dr. Tea Golob, prof. dr. Matej Makarovič and prof. dr. Mateja Rek, is published in the prestigious A1 scientific journal Comunicar, which is a highly ranked scientific journal in the field of media education. The level of competition for publication in this publication is extremely high. A total of 243 manuscripts from around the world were submitted for publication in issue (66) and only 10 were accepted (4.11% accepted and 95.89% rejected).

View video to get a quick idea about our research: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0d9tCCYW0o

The article Meta-reflexivity for resilience against disinformation is publicly available in English at:
https://www.revistacomunicar.com/index.php?contenido=preimpreso&doi=10.3916%2FC66-2021-09&idioma=en

The Spanish translation of the article Meta-reflexividad para la resiliencia contra la disinformación is publicly available at:
https://www.revistacomunicar.com/index.php?contenido=preprints&doi=10.3916/C66-2021-09

Visit www.pismenost.si

The Infrastructural program of Faculty for media – collecting, managing and archiving data on media literacy – since 2013 we collect data, analyse trends on media literacy in Slovenia (the program's web site is available at http://pismenost.si/). The program is funded by the Slovene Research Agency. We gather data on projects, programs and other activities concerning media literacy in Slovenia.
We also conducted research, gathering and analysing data on media-related habits of different target groups among the Slovene population. Conducted research include:

Media literacy in Slovenia (general population, 2014)
Media and preschool children (2015)
Media and secondary school students (2015)
Media and primary school children (2016)
Media habits of blind, visual disabled, deaf and hearing impaired (2017)
Media habits of the elderly population – 65+years (2018)
Media habits of people with mental health challenges (2019)