The project is concerned with Media Literacy, understood as the ability to critically engage with, discuss, read, and also produce different kinds of media (Alverman & Hagood 2000). Since the Brexit vote and U.S. elections in 2016, fakes and fake news on the internet – in particular on social media – are frequently discussed as problems, with increased Media Literacy amongst users being proposed as one solution. The project investigates this recent dimension of Media Literacy discourse and contextualizes it in relation to earlier attempts at media education in the 20th century. In particular, I am interested in exploring the parallels between the paradigm of ‘discrimination’, an approach to media education focused on differentiating between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ media, and today’s Media Literacy as the necessary qualification to differentiate between fakes and authentic content on social media.
The project conducts a historical discourse analysis, focusing both on materials from the early history of media education and Media Literacy in the 20th century as well as the more recent debates from 2015 onward. A systematic analysis of the materials (books, journals, reports, newspapers, websites, blog entries etc.) will show what Media Literacy means to different people and institutions in different times and which conflicts and issues with the term arise from that today. The research will be published as a chapter in an upcoming book dealing with fakes in digital cultures as well as paper in an international journal.