The main agenda of this project is to establish learning systems for the field of media literacy (ML) and to provide the public of Southeastern-Asia (Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia, consciously chosen because of their difference in socio-political systems and media cultures) with a set of ML-competencies that helps them to handle social change (equal media change) through developing a media habitus. In order to achieve this, the project builds the necessary technical, academic and organizational capacities to implement a new form of ICT-based practice of teaching- and research-activities in the field of ML.These capacities are realized by: 1: a Delphi study conducted to reveal the existing structural capacities (stakeholders, local ML-potential) of partner countries’ higher education instituts (HEIs) – hereinafter referred to as “partners” – creating a general knowledge in the field of ML. The results will be used to deduct a ML-development-plan to provide the partners with the capacity to form a network in order to conduct later on joint comparative education- and research activities. 2: establishing an E-Learning-tool improving and intensifying knowledge exchange among all partners. Additionally the platform will enable the partners to integrate a new educational approach of blended learning and E-Learning into their study programs and trainings. To spread ML-knowledge in society a public MOOC will be hosted.3: exploiting the full potential of this tool and to broaden the ML-knowledge of the partners, an extensive “train-the-faculty”-program is conducted throughout the project. The impact of those measures will be an improved ML-knowledge of the partners and the general public (referring to users’ media competence) as well as improved collaboration between partners for ML-education and research activities. A nationally/transnationally structured knowledge and E-Learning network - a “Media Literacy cluster” (MLC) - among all partners will be formed.The main ag
The overall aim of the project was to build the foundation for more media literate societies in South East Asia (Malaysia, Thailand & Vietnam) in order to cope with the challenges of social change in modern societies. Important drivers for such transformations are media effects on social practice (mediatization and medialization), influencing culture, economics, politics and other societal spheres.In contrast to many other programs that deal with these phenomena by focusing on digital literacy skills like programming, media production, and education to tackle problems like fake news, filter bubbles & hate speech - this project operated on a more comprehensive level. The project aimed at a transformation of the operating system itself, by using Higher Education Institutions as places to connect important stakeholders within these societies to think about arising needs as well as societal and cultural goals in the face of global and local developments. To implement this future-studies-guided approach the project defined, planned and realized multiple work packages: • An Action-Research oriented Delphi Study to do research on the current knowledge and future demands of Media Literacy combined with the attempt to find and activate stakeholders was conducted. This made it possible to incorporate desires and needs of stakeholders beyond the higher education system.• A series of Train-the-Faculty workshops that presented different perspectives and tools within a diverse theoretical concept of Media Literacy and its educational institutionalization were organized. By educating and training HEI lecturers the project lay the foundations for future impact on media-related courses, curriculums but also for future basic and applied research.• Additionally, lecturers were trained to plan, develop and test E-Learning materials to put their newly acquired knowledge to use. Part of this training process was to develop MOOCs that address students as well as the general public. While it was originally planned to create one MOOC in multiple languages, it was later decided to launch three different MOOCs, one for each country, as this allowed for greater acceptability and sustainability since the courses could be tailored to the needs of the individual HEIs, allowing also the use as blended-learning materials for the regular curriculum courses. All MOOCs are available via the openlearning.com platform. • Furthermore, the consortium was extended into a Media Literacy Network (MEDLITnet) that promotes Media Literacy and develop future projects. Partners from Malaysia are leading this network for the next two years.