Global Media and Information Literacy (MIL) Week 2017

 With more and more people having access to information, it is important to raise awareness about the quality of the information we receive on a daily basis. It is essential that new generations became digital citizens “with skills to critically evaluate, verify, use and contribute to transforming information into knowledge for the benefit of all” (Message from Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO – Global MIL Week 2017). The Global MIL Week is a way to ensure this.

The Global MIL Week or Global Media and Information Literacy Week is an event organized by UNESCO which takes place every year in different parts of the world to promote and celebrate the progress made in information literacy through activities and conferences. The overall purpose is to encourage a global community to share projects and ideas about increasing information and digital literacies.

Mr. Gibbings - Trinidad Express

At the Information Literacy Week conference, many individuals were invited to talk about their specific research areas. Wesley Gibbings, a journalist and member of the Association of Caribbean Media Workers, presented a talk on resetting Media and Information Literacy. He analysed the importance of the work of journalists today, calling them modern-day heroes. Mr. Gibbings highlighted a recent natural disaster in the Caribbean region which depopulated some of the islands, and how important it was for people at that time to gain reliable information from the media. He recognizes that people needed more than just information, they also needed to think critically about this information and have an ability to act upon it. Mr. Gibbings also noted that media outlets themselves need to pay additional attention to MIL, but stressed this did not mean we should turn to “citizen journalism.” 

An interesting part of MIL week was MIL Clicks (Media and Information Literacy: Critical-thinking and creativity, Literacy, Intercultural, Citizenship, Knowledge, and Sustainability). This program is a way for people to acquire media and information literacy skills in their normal use of the internet and social media. It trains people to be more MIL competent and to raise awareness about the importance of media and information literacy at all levels of society, especially as more and more people are using social media to access information. The initiative is being carried out globally and in different languages (at the moment in English, Portuguese, and Serbian) and is targeting policy makers, MIL experts, teachers without MIL expertise, development agencies, private sector organizations, and the general public. See the following video for further explanations.

MIL Clicks is intended to be implemented by users themselves. They can download the logo to put on their own online spaces to encourage media and information literacy skills. In addition to this branding, they also offer MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses) in a variety of languages so that users themselves can become experts in this field. While these MOOCs are useful for people who may not otherwise be actively engaged in Information Literacy studies, the MIL Clicks UNESCO website also offers teaching resources so that this can also be implemented by instructors in their own courses. MIL Clicks is active on social media, with Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram feeds that use guided questions and infographics to teach their followers about information literacy in an informal setting to reach more people including those who might otherwise miss or be uninterested in taking a MOOC on the subject.