Ms Martina Chapman:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to contribute to this meeting today. Media literacy is an umbrella term for a constantly evolving set of skills and knowledge that are required by people to function effectively, safely and ethically in a media-dominated world. Media literacy needs vary considerably from person to person and will change based on personal circumstances, life stages, social norms, changes in technology, and even changes in legislation. As such, it is a lifelong learning process that cannot be delivered by any single organisation or sector. At the heart of media literacy is the ability to understand and critically evaluate media messages and assess information to facilitate informed decision-making. Media literacy is increasingly being recognised in policy agendas and in legislation as a tool for helping to counter disinformation.

Media Literacy Ireland, MLI, is an independent, informal alliance of organisations and individuals working together on a mainly voluntary basis to promote media literacy. Facilitated and funded by Coimisiún na Meán, it is an unincorporated body with more than 350 members drawn from many sectors, including media, communications, academia, online platforms, libraries and civil society. Since 2018, MLI has established itself as the go-to body for media literacy in Ireland and has created a successful communications and project delivery infrastructure involving many stakeholders across the island. Our work has been acknowledged in numerous national frameworks and strategies, and our multi-stakeholder approach has been recognised as best practice by a number of international bodies. Of particular note is the Be Media Smart campaign, which encourages people to stop, think and check that the information they are getting is accurate and reliable. The campaign is supported free of charge by a wide range of MLI members, and it directs people to bemediasmart.ie for help and support. The last iteration of the campaign reached in excess of 3.1 million radio listeners weekly while the TV campaign reached at least 5.3 million people. More than 1 million were reached via news publications. A TikTok-TheJournal.ie initiative achieved more than 6.4 million video views. Independent research shows that unprompted awareness of the message peaked at 23%. For context, 13% to 17% is considered very good for similar campaigns. The initiative has been noted as best practice and the concept has been adopted in six other European countries.

Our work with the EDMO Ireland has resulted in training more than 100 community leaders to deliver Be Media Smart training in their communities, and we are actively working with the library network to explore how we can help them achieve the objectives in the national public library strategy. We are also represented on the national counter disinformation strategy working group.

Building resilience to disinformation requires reliable, well-resourced, cross-sector infrastructure that can facilitate the delivery of messaging and practical support in a tailored way to a diverse set of people over an extended period of time. MLI has been successfully bringing together diverse stakeholders to deliver tangible results in this area, and we look forward to continuing to do so, as well as expanding our reach, influence and impact, with the support of Coimisiún na Meán and other key stakeholders.