Disinformation is more than “fake news”
Global citizenship skills in education: What Does Civic Literacy Mean in the Disinformation Age?
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Disinformation is more than “fake news”. It is about the whole information environment that people find themselves in, ranging from news to entertainment, rumors, satire, and conspiracy theories. Much of this is conveyed on social media platforms through images, texts, videos and audio clips. Its evolving nature is propelled by rapid technological development and this can be defined as false information with the intent to harm. Disinformation is often emotionally charged to increase people´s propensity to buy into the messaging and to unknowingly pass it on to others.
What is the role of education in efforts to counter disinformation?
There are two basic approaches to countering disinformation: Top down and bottom up.
Top-down measures include various kinds of regulatory or policy measures. Many of them aim at controlling or restricting information flows. Such measures can also consist of incentivizing certain behaviours. For example, through carefully designed online architectures, social media platforms can provide warnings, corrections, or nudges to make individuals deliberately consider and evaluate content before they share, rate, or comment on it. Another top-down policy measure is to make media literacy mandatory in school curricula, an option used by a growing number of governments. This brings us on to the bottom-up measures.
Bottom-up measures can be called ‘literacy enhancing’. Such measures are aimed at equipping people with a latent ability to identify disinformation. Schools and other education institutions have vital roles to play. Training modalities can range from classroom teaching to online modules. Children and youth in formal education are important target groups of such interventions. Pragmatic approaches include the integration of media and information literacy in other school subjects. Proactive countering disinformation efforts have, for example, been undertaken in Finland where children are taught about disinformation from an early age. The widespread preparedness and ability to, for example, detect grammatical errors in online messaging, led to the prompt halt of a foreign-sponsored disinformation campaign during Finland´s NATO accession process.
What does civic literacy mean in the disinformation age?
There are vivid discussions about the specific types of civic literacy needed to cope in today´s disinformation environment. Attempts are made at comparing the relative merits of media literacy, digital literacy, and information literacy. Others are putting more of a focus on the role of citizenship, as reflected in studies on civic media literacy, civic social media literacy, and civic data literacy.
What is clear is that knowledge and skills of different kinds are needed for citizens to keep pace with the growing volumes of both fake and real information. A recent study by Lilja, Eklund and Tottie (2024) finds that there is no common understanding of what disinformation is, but also that there is no clear understanding of what constitutes authentic information. However, most people recognize their lack of knowledge and skills and want to improve.
It is equally clear that education systems and schools must play a central role in ensuring that every child and adolescent develop civic literacy. A broad set of cognitive skills, emotional self-awareness, and technical know-how is required for citizens to navigate the massive flows of true, false and simply irrelevant information. People need to be able to spot lies but they also need to be able to trust authentic information. The discriminatory capacity to separate fake from real is key.
Summing up and ways forward
1. Disinformation is more than we think. The rapid evolution of the disinformation landscape is driven by new technological developments combined with human-made strategies. Disinformation goes beyond fake news to encompass the entire information environment. Continuous exposure to disinformation may subconsciously affect the judgement of individuals.
2. Civic literacy in the disinformation age is also more than we think. Civic literacy today is extremely demanding. A very broad set of skills and knowledge is needed for a person to act as a responsible citizen. Knowledge of how to identify both disinformation and reliable information is required.
3. Urgent and concerted measures by a variety of actors are needed – and educators have central roles to play. Teaching children and youth civic literacy skills is necessary. However, adults outside the formal education system are a neglected constituency that also needs educators´ attention. Tailored and engaging online and offline efforts aimed at different constituencies will be critical.
A joined-up cross-sectoral approach is needed to counter the forces that disinform, divide, and ultimately attempt to dismantle democracy.
