From 2022 ALIA partnered with members of the News and Media Research department at the University of Canberra (UC) to investigate perceptions of LIS practitioners about media literacy, especially how best to support library community members and library users to develop and enhance their media literacy skills. The partnership also sought to create tools, learning resources and opportunities for LIS professionals who would like to embed media literacy programming into their services.

The research premise came from the acknowledgement that the proliferation of new digital platforms, mis and disinformation, fake news, deepfakes, sponsored content and the rise of the 'attention economy', among other issues, means there is an urgent need to understand how people access and engage with information and media content, and how they are impacted by it.

Libraries play a significant role in supporting the public to develop and upskill their media and digital literacy. Media technology is rapidly evolving, and the skills people learn during formal education need constant updating. Media literacy is among the most important skills for people to engage effectively with media content as online platforms multiply, mis and disinformation proliferates and the 'attention economy' vies for our time.

The research undertaken was presented in a long form report, Libraries and media literacy education as well as a shorter Libraries and Media Literacy Education Snapshot Report.

The findings of the research underpinned the development of an ALIA-accredited micro-credential at the University of Canberra. The short course is self-paced, runs for seven weeks, and contains 50 hours of learning. The course has so far run for four sessions, and the report contains a review of the first two intakes, with a total of 44 students.

In April 2022 a media literacy webinar was presented by Dr Barbara Walsh and Dr Sora Park (University of Canberra), Dr Barbara Lemon (NSLA) and Trish Hepworth, ALIA Director of Policy and Education (questions moderated by Dr Phoebe Weston Evans (ALIA) and Aimee Said (NSLA)). They discussed the Australian Media Literacy Alliance (AMLA), of which ALIA and NSLA are members, and its push to establish a national strategy to promote media literacy, as well as recent media literacy reports, and findings from the UC-ALIA research.

For more information about the Media Literacy Report or University of Canberra short course, contact [email protected] or [email protected]