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An emerging focus for the Taskforce is on improving the reach of media literacy provision to hard-to- reach communities...
INSIGHT
MILA Update Extending the evidence base
HE Media and Information Literacy Alliance (MILA), of which CILIP and the CILIP Information
Literacy Group (ILG) are major partners, has been making steady progress. As reported in the March issue of Information Professional, MILA is looking to commission a study into the significance of information literacy.
The Alliance has now issued a call for proposals to run a comprehensive review of research about information literacy and society. The aims of the review are to identify core research into 1. the role that information literacy plays for different user groups in society, and 2. the barriers and enablers to shaping an information literate population; and to map research methodologies used in the literature and which appear to be most effective.
CILIP and ILG are jointly making available up to £10,000 to fund this work. MILA welcomes proposals from interested researchers, with a response deadline on 1 July 2022. For full details, including the project specification, see
https://mila.org.uk/news/ call-for-proposals-il-and-society/. We expect that the study will be completed and published no later than March 2023. It should provide a thorough overview of information literacy, its key research, scholars, practitioners and impact. It should also offer a basis for fostering greater public awareness of the societal importance and relevance of information literacy.
MILA does not work in isolation. The Alliance is slowly building up its network of stakeholders, in the library world and beyond. There have been constructive interactions recently with organisations including the Patient Information Forum, the WEA
June 2022
(Workers’ Educational Association), the RSA (Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce). There is also an ongoing dialogue with Ofcom, the media regulator, and DCMS, the Department for Digital, Media, Culture and Sport. On behalf of both CILIP and MILA, Nick Poole sits on the new DCMS Media Literacy Taskforce Steering Board1
, charged
. We hope that MILA will be able to contribute to the development of this agenda.
In another area of stakeholder engagement, MILA has been developing its relationship with Libraries Connected (LC). In particular, the Alliance contributed its views to the production of LC’s two new training modules3
with overseeing the implementation of the UK Government’s Online Media Literacy Strategy. An emerging focus for the Taskforce is on improving the reach of media literacy provision to hard-to-reach communities – people who are disengaged or do not have access to support. To help address this challenge, over the coming year, the Taskforce will be piloting innovative interventions, with funding from DCMS2
Stéphane Goldstein is Executive Director of InformAll. He is the coordinator for MILA and Advocacy and Outreach Officer for CILIP’s Information Literacy Group.
for public
librarians: media and information literacy; and key digital skills. These resources were made possible thanks to financial support from DCMS as one of the early actions stemming from the Online Media Literacy Strategy. On 11 May, I joined a webinar panel for the launch of the modules, providing an opportunity to present MILA to an online audience of around 170 people. MILA continues to refine its Framework for living and thriving in an information society – see https://
mila.org.uk/news/mila-framework/. Its purpose is to demonstrate what media and information literacy means for people in everyday life and in various recognisable settings. A MILA workshop organised at LILAC, in April,
provided an opportunity to discuss the five lifelong aspirations at the heart of the Framework. Workshop participants were invited to consider the meaning of each of the aspirations and to expand on how media and information literacy helps people to achieve these aspirations. This valuable feedback is helping MILA ensure that the Framework provides a pragmatic way of illustrating the reality and relevance of media and information literacy. There is still time to contribute to its development; please send any suggestions or comments to me, at
sg@informall.org.uk. IP
References 1 DCMS,
www.gov.uk/government/groups/media-literacy- taskforce-steering-board
2 DCMS, Online Media Literacy Action Plan,
www.gov. uk/government/publications/year-2-online-media-literacy-action- plan-202223/year-2-online-media-literacy-action-plan-202223
3 Libraries Connected, Digital, Media and Information Skills,
https://lc.learningpool.com/course/index. php?categoryid=29
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