It is important to distinguish between media education and media literacy. Although these terms are often used interchangeably, they have different meanings. Media education goes beyond practical media literacy, and its primary objective should be to develop critical thinking skills. With the advent of social media, the ways in which we use information sources, build knowledge, and influence the information environment and its actors have been revolutionized. This is why the EU Audiovisual Media Services Directive (DAUM) has expanded the scope of media education and defined it as “skills, knowledge, and understanding that enable citizens to use media effectively and safely, think critically, evaluate, analyze complex realities, and differentiate opinions from facts” (Directive of the European Parliament, 2018).
1 The Role of Media Education in Countering Disinformation
There are no global, uniform standards and practices in media education, and there are many reasons for this. One reason is the varying levels of general education and the speed at which it adapts to changes in the environment, especially those related to desired skills. Another limitation is the lack of awareness about the importance of media education, as well as the systemic preparedness and conservatism of teachers. Many teachers are not always prepared to teach lessons as quickly as they receive new information due to the rapidly changing landscape of technology. Moreover, young internet users are quick to adapt, and it is not uncommon for students to have greater skills in informatics and using computers than their teachers in computer science lessons. This does not mean that students should assume the role of teacher, but it should prompt reflection on how, what, and why to teach.
In the U.S., there are several factors that contribute to inequality in media education, such as ethnicity, student wealth, location, school district, and school type. Moreover, American teachers have expressed concerns about the lack of guidance on modern teaching content. While approximately 41% of teachers incorporate media education elements into their lessons, only 17% treat media education as a separate subject. However, based on research,
The authors of NESET (McDougall et al., 2018), a comprehensive report prepared for the European Union titled Teaching media literacy in Europe: evidence of effective school practices in primary and secondary education, provides practical guidance on what and how to teach media literacy, what skills are necessary, how to measure them, and what education policies should be recommended throughout the EU. The ultimate goal is to guide students away from merely acquiring technical media skills towards developing pro-social and civic behaviors. According to the recommendations, the desired capabilities should include:
- –Accessing, finding, using, and sharing information from a variety of sources.
- –Understanding, critical evaluation, quality analysis, truthfulness, and credibility of views and effects.
- –Creating content and expressing individuality in a way that inspires trust, with an awareness of the purpose and addressee.
- –The ability to behave in a socially responsible and ethical manner, consistent with one’s beliefs and intended communication goals, and the ability to consciously use the media.
- –The ability of social, civic engagement through the media and political self-realization based on democratic values and attitudes.
The aim, therefore, is to develop a range of attitudes and skills that lead to pro-social and civic behaviors, covering the axis of recipient-creator of information-responsible citizens. To achieve this, the EU institutions are developing comprehensive programs that combine countering disinformation with media education and digital competencies. However, the NESET report highlights the challenges of combating disinformation without interfering with the basic beliefs of students. The report emphasizes the importance of preparing teachers and creating a competency framework, particularly in secondary schools. It suggests that correcting false information may be ineffective for students with strong convictions and recommends using multiple sources and viewpoints, fostering open dialogue, and avoiding hasty and definitive assessments.
Those responsible for school curricula and their implementation must decide whether to include media education as part of various subjects or as a separate subject that integrates content from different fields of knowledge. Media education can be included in social sciences, humanities, science, or natural sciences. It has not been uniformly practiced as a compulsory subject of education in EU Member States. In Finland, education on combating
Regardless of the model adopted, one approach does not have to exclude elements of the other. The recommendations of the authors of the report and other analyses propose developing media education programs: first, to develop media education programs that cover the five essential skills mentioned; and second, to methodologically support teachers and provide them with funds for implementing these programs. Media education should involve investment in pedagogical research, cooperation with civil society, journalists, and non-governmental organizations, as well as the inclusion of media education in teacher training and educational policies. It is also important to raise awareness of the dangers of disinformation and the risks associated with using internet content.
In the latter context, experts from the Polish National Broadcasting Council have made an interesting evaluation (Fake news, 2020). Referring to the need to develop media literacy, critical thinking, and protection of audiences from harmful content, they pointed to the obligations of providers set out in the aforementioned EU Directive on Audiovisual Media Services, amended in 2018, which entails first and foremost protecting their audience, including:
- –Protecting underage users from inappropriate content in broadcasts, videos, and commercial audiovisual broadcasts by using and creating further appropriate provisions in the regulations. This may include marking commercial messages and inappropriate content, creating age verification systems for users, and implementing parental control systems.
- –Protecting the public from user-created content and commercial messages inciting violence or hatred based on gender, race, color, ethnic or social origin, genetic characteristics, language, religion or belief, political opinion, belonging to a national minority, property, birth, disability, age, or sexual orientation.
- –Protecting the public from content pertaining to public incitement to terrorism, child pornography, and racist and xenophobic crimes, the dissemination of which is a criminal offense under EU law.
- –Creating and operating transparent and user-friendly mechanisms for reporting and assessing inappropriate content and informing the public about actions taken.
Second, the amended directive imposes obligations on the Member States: (1) periodic reporting to the European Commission with the first report by December 19, 2022, and then on a three-year basis after; and (2) establishing
Among the various national approaches to media education, some countries have model solutions, particularly in the Nordic countries such as Finland and Sweden. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are also following in their footsteps. However, in most countries around the world, systemic media education either does not exist or is only just now being developed, particularly in regards to disinformation by external actors. It is easier to adapt policies and practical approaches to new challenges for those who have been teaching media use and disinformation in general for years. In Northern European countries, the approach to media education is based on a high level of general education, school autonomy, and integrating it into the curricula of the youngest and even pre-school students.
National approaches and practices in combating disinformation through media education can be classified according to various criteria, such as systematic and temporary, centralized and autonomous, and based on the presence of relevant content in the curricula. Regardless of the model, however, their effectiveness also correlates with the general wealth of societies and the level of education. This is indicated by research conducted by the Open Society Institute in Sofia (The Medicine Literacy, 2019) and as part of the International Student Skills Assessment Program (21st-Century Readers, 2021). Both studies also confirm that the effectiveness of media education is reduced in societies with higher levels of social exclusion, polarization, and tensions.
The aforementioned study by the Polish National Broadcasting Council provides examples that also refer to activities in education by national media regulators. It presents a narrow but interesting perspective on the nature of policies in this area.
In France, there is a systemic approach to media education, and a new impetus was given to it with the Act on Combating Information Manipulation of 2018. This act imposed an obligation to counteract the dissemination of false information on internet services. The French Audiovisual Regulatory Authority has the statutory right to issue recommendations to service providers, encouraging them to provide tools to identify credible sources of information, raise awareness of the impact of online content, and support the development of critical thinking, particularly in children and young people. The authority also recommends supporting projects and creating partnerships for media education, teaching information and digital education, creating independent initiatives by journalists and scientists to understand the phenomenon of disinformation, and conducting information campaigns. The
In Ireland, which follows a civic model, media education is central to the mission of an organization that voluntarily brings together over 120 institutional members from various sectors for media education. The organization includes representatives from the Ombudsman’s Office; the Film Institute; the Creative Europe Office; associations of librarians, advertisers, audiovisual, and media providers; and online platforms such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter.
In the United Kingdom, which also follows a systemic model, a program for the development of media education, called Making Sense of Media, was developed under the auspices of the national regulator, Ofcom. The purpose of the program and expert network is to promote online media literacy, research, and the coordination of activities in different areas of education. The expert network includes representatives from academia and non-governmental organizations. An example of such activity was the issuance of a report by Ofcom in cooperation with the UK Personal Data Protection Agency on adtech technology used in advertising strategies to target users. Since July 2019, Ofcom has been working with a team comprising representatives from UNESCO, the BBC, Facebook, Google, the National Association of Librarians, the Oxford Internet Institute, and the London School of Economics, among others. This team advises the regulator on matters related to new research areas and the evaluation of activities aimed at increasing media competences and critical thinking among citizens.
Media education is a part of the curriculum in most European Union countries, starting from elementary school level, and is mainly taught in subjects such as languages, history, social sciences, visual arts, social studies, and communication technologies. However, the extent and content of these classes can vary depending on the interests and preferences of the school or teacher, as is the case in Poland. Some countries, such as Czechia, Finland, and Hungary, have framework programs for media education at the national level, while the Netherlands, Germany, and the United Kingdom have adopted more systemic solutions, according to the NESET report of 2018 (McDougall et al., 2018).
Based on the changing needs of the environment and limited knowledge, the state of media education in the European Union can be assessed as moderately satisfactory, although teaching about disinformation by foreign states and non-state actors, particularly at higher levels of education, is
Research conducted in the U.S. has identified significant gaps in media education and in particular, low levels of student competence and a lack of clear guidelines for teachers regarding curricula. RAND experts have prepared a special report on this matter, outlining the implementation and evaluation of a potential systemic educational program (Huguet et al., 2021). Within this framework, they distinguished six universal stages:
Defining learning expectations.
Identifying conditions that may affect educational efforts.
Exploring teaching potential, teacher availability, and resources.
Identifying teacher competence indicators.
Monitoring progress.
Measuring the overall impact of media education on a student’s school performance.
This approach can be used to create integrated and outcome-verifiable media education programs in any country.
The state of media education in Poland appears to be inadequate in meeting current needs. By NESET and RAND standards, education authorities and teachers have yet to establish an effective media education program in the country. Furthermore, an informal survey conducted through interviews by the authors of this book with over 40 high school students, including recent graduates from 2020 and 2021, suggested that media education in Polish secondary schools is largely non-existent. There is a lack of appropriate school curricula, with even the outlines of such curricula being absent. The topic is only introduced if a teacher takes a personal interest and initiative or if students pursue it independently.
At the university level, several Polish universities offer classes on disinformation, including the University of Warsaw, Vistula University, and Collegium Civitas. In 2021, academics from the University of Warsaw, the Warsaw School of
2 Counteracting Disinformation at the Individual Level
It is difficult to imagine completely eliminating disinformation from interpersonal communication, regardless of its carriers. Disinformation is, in a way, a natural phenomenon as many people spread it willingly because they want to stand out, hide something, gain something, be the first, create, or belong to a group. They often live with prejudices, think in a stereotypical way, and encounter politics or businesses that are abundant in manipulation (The complex, 2021). Besides these general factors, there are others that contribute to or limit the spread of disinformation, such as:
- –Demographics. Age plays a key factor, as older people are often more credulous and less likely to verify information.
- –Source. This involves considering the qualifications of a source. For instance, celebrities may post information while lacking competence in the area of knowledge.
- –Level of education. Although more education does not guarantee the avoidance of disinformation, it promotes awareness of threats.
- –Increased mental capabilities. Intelligent people are more prone to knowingly lie as it often requires more complicated mental structures than telling the truth.
- –Personal traits. These traits can include sympathy for people, caution, introversion, and independence. Each of these traits individually informs people’s susceptibility to disinformation or their propensity to disseminate it.
- –Tendencies to analyze. People who are equipped and ready to analyze usually favor prudence in action in the information space.
- –Emotionality. Those who are more emotional are at greater risk for impulsive actions.
- –Morality. A person’s morality is an important source of motivation for behavior in the information space.
3 Informational Health and Safety
Applications are also created for media education and countering disinformation in public-private partnerships, including international ones. Breaking Harmony Square was developed as part of an American-British-Dutch collaboration to teach recognition of manipulation techniques (Carr, 2021). In Poland, educational tools, including games for younger internet users, have been developed by entities such as the Demagog Association (Platforma, 2022). These training tools and games help individuals learn how to detect trolls (Aneja & Ifraimova, 2021) and how to distinguish a propagandist and a disinformer from a journalist. They also raise awareness of other risks and threats, such as the traces left on the web by clicking (Stradner & Agrawal, 2021), how trackers build a user profile based on the history of visited websites, how algorithms create information bubbles, and why content on Facebook is individually curated (Ressa, 2016).
In the interests of cybersecurity, computer and smartphone users should follow rules such as protecting passwords and changing them regularly, having up-to-date anti-virus software, and adhering to software license rules. In the information environment, to which we gain access through these tools, we must also adhere to certain rules and develop certain habits discussed in greater detail in the previous section. These rules and habits can be designated the hygiene of behavior in the information space, calling for users to:
- –Check the credibility of the sources. This includes the platform, internet address, and contact data. The data and address may be intentionally crafted to look like recognized media.
- –Check the credibility of the authors. This includes their previous publications, posts, and profile.
- –Take time to be acquainted with the whole and verifying the integrity of the text. Take note of whether it contradicts itself, whether it is in other sources, and whether it is a satire.
- –Verify the publication’s date and chronology. This includes paying attention to photos or images for distortions.
- –Cross-reference information in other sources and with experts.
–Notice flashy titles. This involves checking not only the source but also the quoted interlocutors and experts. - –Verify linguistic correctness.
In other words, information should be approached with skepticism and critical thinking, verifying sources, distinguishing facts from opinions, and being open to arguments with people of different views. It is also worth investing in access to reliable media and the content they provide and referring to expert studies in media education.
Over time, everyone can develop the ability to recognize not only trolls and bots but also Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior (CIB). A natural next step in identifying disinformation may involve learning basic techniques of propaganda and disinformation. For those who would like to become more actively involved in identifying and combating disinformation, social media service platforms provide free tools to track it, such as those used by the Disinformation Forensic Lab (DFRLab) at the Atlantic Council in Washington. These include (Knight, 2021):
3.1 WHOIS Searches
WHOIS searches allow users to see who registered a domain name, when it was registered, and sometimes find registrant contact information. This can be useful when investigating suspicious websites disseminating disinformation or propaganda (WHOIS, 2022).
3.2 Transparency and Facebook Sections
Limited third-party tools are available to research Facebook, but the platform itself provides information about pages and groups through transparency and sections (How to Manage, 2022). The administrator’s location data is displayed in a transparent manner, as are the rename records which allow you to check if the page has been changed or if the administrators are in the country about which they are reporting. The About section can contain map coordinates, cell phone numbers, email addresses, and even website links, all of which can track site operators.
3.3 Google Analytics and AdSense
If WHOIS searches are unsuccessful, there are other options. A quick look at the site’s source code, accessed by right clicking the page and then clicking “view source code”, may reveal key information. Google Analytics information is found by searching for “ua-” in the source code. This will return a number in the format ua-12345678, which can then be used for an analytics reverse lookup using tools such as DNSlytics to verify that the same analytics ID is embedded
3.4 Advanced Google/Google Dorking Search Engine
By using advanced search operators, the DFRLab can find and identify links between the author of a propaganda report and the government from which they are writing (Exposing The Invisible, 2022). Google Dorking, or advanced search on Google, allows the user to diversify search engines to find information that would not be easy to find on the website, such as government expense spreadsheets.
3.5 Advanced Twitter Search
Advanced Twitter search allows the user to check the connections between two or more accounts on that platform, if they interacted, and if so, what topics they covered. Advanced Twitter Search also allows for bypassing the limit that prevents users from viewing over 3,200 tweets posted on an account’s timeline. By using this search, the user can go back to the creation of the account by searching all tweets for a specific hashtag, keyword, or phrase, or by searching for a specific period. This allows verifiers to see if an account’s performance has changed over time.
3.6 Twitter Investigative Tools
Twitter search tools, such as Twitonomy (Twitonomy, 2022), TweetBeaver, and TruthNest give greater insight into user activity. Trithionate and Twitonomy show what tools are being used to publish on the platform, which may show bot activity. Tweet-Beaver allows investigators to download the last 3,200 tweets of a user for analytical purposes. It can also search for the data of 90,000 accounts within a time span of 15 minutes.
Technology companies, media, and fact-checking organizations offer a wider range of tools and databases on various forms of disinformation. Access to some of them is paid or restricted to members of fact-checking organizations. One of the free and basic elements of the investigative toolbox is InVID. Developed as part of the European project of the same name, it aims to help journalists verify the content of photos and videos on social networks. It allows for faster and more effective verification by gaining contextual information regarding videos on Facebook and YouTube, dividing videos from various platforms into frames, reading video and image metadata, checking copyrights, and using various types of forensic filters (InVid, 2022). Similar tools are also useful for those who would like to get involved in crowdsourced fact-checking,
The system of countering disinformation involves state entities, governments and their institutions, community groups, research, and the media. However, its main link is the individuals responsible for the functioning of these communities through their work. Even if some perform this work completely independently, their achievements are part of this environment’s general potential. Their knowledge, commitment, individual expertise, and messaging, sometimes reaching millions of recipients, serve the purpose of unmasking, deterring, or hindering the tasks of disinformers.
Alexandre Alaphilippe, for instance, is the founder and executive director of the Brussels-based non-governmental organization EU DisinfoLab and a prominent independent researcher. His organization has a global mission to expose disinformation campaigns, raise awareness, and build civil society resilience to disinformation. Ben Nimmo heads investigations at Graphica, a company dealing with network analysis, including the use of artificial intelligence, researching internet communities, and detecting disinformation and coordinated inauthentic behavior, to discover the path of the operation of Russian influence. Peter Pomerantsev from the London School of Economics has been conducting research on information manipulation for years. In his book This Is Not Propaganda, he combines the story of Soviet dissidents forced to emigrate from the USSR with the history of people exposing falsehood, introducing the problem of international disinformation to millions of readers. Anne Applebaum, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, discovers truths unwanted by autocrats in all her work. Together with Peter Pomerantsev, she prepared a report on the Swedish system for counteracting disinformation. Samuel C. Woolley from the University of Texas at Austin analyzes the role of modern technologies in contemporary global political communication. In his famous book The Reality Game, he shows how technologies, from deepfake to virtual reality, are used to manipulate public opinion and how they can be used in the future.
Counteracting disinformation is handled by specific sections within international organizations. Individual teams and their leaders, such as Baiba Braže and Oana Lungescu, are crucial to shaping the image of NATO and building public confidence in it. Martyna Bildziukiewicz heads the EastStratcom disinformation task force in the European Union, which contributed to the launch of the Polish version of the EU vs. Disinfo databases. The team analyzes and provides tips to counteract disinformation mainly from Russia.
Last but not least, despite repressions, Dmitry Muratov is a Russian journalist and editor of the irregular Novaya Gazeta. In 2021, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to protect freedom of speech together with Maria Ressa. He ended his speech in Oslo with the words: “Let us stand up and celebrate with a minute of silence for my fellow reporters and Maria Ressa, who gave their lives for this profession, and give support to those who suffer persecution. I want journalists to die old” (The Nobel, 2021).