Second European congress on media literacy

Susanne Krucsay , Chef du département Pédagogie des médias/Médias d’éducation/Services médias du Ministère fédéral de l’Education, des Arts et de la Culture (Autriche)

Susanne Krucsay
Is everyone a producer? – Challenge/Invitation for Discussion

First of all it is useful and necessary to put down the parameters of how I see media education and media literacy:
Media literacy is the goal, the ultimate objective of media education, which is a process. When media education is part of an overall education to communicate, then a media literate person has the ability to action through media.
My area is formal education, i.e. ideas, processes, projects within the setting of institutions, mainly in schools. In Austria the regulation foresees media education as a cross-curricular, or rather transcurricular practice from the beginning of primary school on, i.e. 6 years till graduation, i.e. 18/19 years. Back to one statement about educational theories: I see media education within the context of critical pedagogy in the tradition of Paulo Freire and I see very close connections, in fact overlapping sections with sustainable education, citizenship education, consumer education and what is most important in today’s concept: cultural education.
Media production is, according to international documents, an important part of media education. Whereas the4 first documents, such as the Grünwald Declaration of the UNESCO 1982, highlighted the reception of media – then mass media – the rapid advance of technology quickly found ways on the part of the sender or producer of media messages. The Vienna Recommendations 1999 point to the digital age and include production. The European Charter for Media Literacy lays down 3 pillars of the media literate person: critical, creative and involved in culture. Out of these 3 c’s we are here to discuss the CREATIVE aspect and what is needed in pedagogy to stimulate UGC = user generated content.