Abstract
Educationalists' and policymakers’ curriculum work on digital literacy in England has overlooked the expertise of digital specialists such as information, IT and media professionals. Given the lack of evidence, this article draws on semi-structured interviews with experts in the United Kingdom, enhanced by a diary methodology and a conversational approach to the think aloud method, to explore how they engage with and evaluate online content. In doing so, it addresses what digital literacy entails and how to promote it across the national curriculum for England. It is argued that the ability to evaluate online content involves not only reflections on the nature and origin of information, contextual knowledge and the use of multiple sources, but also functional and critical digital skills and knowledge about the internet and the digital environment. Relatedly, it is argued that the Citizenship and Computing curricula should be revised to promote digital literacy as a cross-curricular subject.
Highlights
Defined as the ability to access, analyse, evaluate and produce messages in a variety of forms, media literacy is advocated by academics and educationalists for contributing to well-informed citizens who engage with information critically and autonomously, participating in society and democracy (Aufderheide, 1993; Hobbs, 2010)
As research and curriculum work on digital literacy in England have overlooked the expertise of digital specialists, this study addresses the following research questions: RQ1: How do digital experts engage with and evaluate online content? RQ2: What skills and knowledge do digital experts deploy that could inform how digital literacy is promoted through the national curriculum?
This study addresses the under-researched questions of how digital experts in the UK engage with and evaluate online content (RQ1 above) and, relatedly, what skills and knowledge they deploy that could inform how digital literacy is promoted through the national curriculum for England (RQ2 above)
Summary
Defined as the ability to access, analyse, evaluate and produce messages in a variety of forms, media literacy is advocated by academics and educationalists for contributing to well-informed citizens who engage with information critically and autonomously, participating in society and democracy (Aufderheide, 1993; Hobbs, 2010). In the UK, while information is highly mediated by digital technologies, only 2% of primary and secondary school children are able to identify false information online when taking a misinformation quiz. Three in five say misinformation makes them trust the news less, and half are worried about whether they can identify misinformation (National Literacy Trust, 2018). While half of 12- to 15-year-olds find it hard to tell whether content on social media is true, two in five have come across misinformation. Over four in ten think that social media provide trustworthy news. Three in ten aged 8–15 think that “if a website is listed by a search engine it can be trusted” (Ofcom, 2019, pp. 10–11)
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