Fit for purpose? Taking a closer look at the UK’s Online Media Literacy Strategy

Abstract

Now more than ever, media literacy is essential as we navigate our daily lives (Mesquita-Romero et al., 2022). The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted how we need to frequently navigate media spaces filled with changing, and not always credible, information (Austin et al., 2021). Media literacy affects our habits as well as our social connections (Hobbs, 2021). This short opinion piece from two educators in the field provides an exploration of the Online Media Literacy Strategy (OMLS) published by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, UK, in 2021. The aim of the OMLS was to predict how media literacy may evolve in our society. This paper gives a brief introduction to the OMLS and offers three critiques, which educators may find useful, namely the undersold role of schools, the negative connotations of seeing ‘media literacy’ as solely a way of navigating online harms, and the negative perception of social media (SM). The concept of SM as being ‘production-positive’ is pitched.