Well-informed Citizens Research Articles

ALFABETIZAÇÃO MIDIÁTICA E FAKE NEWS: DESAFIOS E ESTRATÉGIAS NO ENSINO DE PORTUGUÊS PARA A FORMAÇÃO DE ALUNOS CRÍTICOS

In the current context, media literacy has emerged as an essential skill for the formation of critical and well-informed citizens. This article addresses the importance of integrating this skill into the school curriculum, especially in the teaching of Portuguese. Initially, the challenges faced by educators when dealing with the vast amount of information available and the proliferation of fake news are presented. The lack of criteria for assessing the veracity of information and the influence of social networks make students vulnerable to misinformation, highlighting the urgent need for effective media education. The article then explores various didactic strategies that can be implemented in Portuguese teaching to combat disinformation. These include developing critical thinking, analyzing information sources and encouraging the production of responsible digital content. Practical activities such as news debates, fact-checking and school media projects are suggested to engage students in an active and meaningful way. Finally, the formation of critical learners as a central objective of contemporary education is discussed. Media literacy is presented not only as a complement to traditional Portuguese teaching, but as an integral component that prepares students to face the challenges of the digital age. The article concludes that by enabling students to recognize and question false information, schools play a fundamental role in promoting a more critical and informed society.

Benefits of reading and how to promote reading habits among Cambodians

Reading is vital for expanding knowledge, improving critical thinking, and fostering creativity. It not only benefits academic, professional, and personal development but also contributes to sustainable development and social prosperity. However, in Cambodia, reading habits are underdeveloped due to the rising popularity of social media and other factors of historical, cultural, and economic nature. Collaboration between stakeholders, including the government, non-governmental organizations, schools, and parents, is essential to promote reading habits in the country. This will help turn Cambodia into a reading nation, foster cognitive development, and cultivate more well-informed citizens. Relying on secondary sources, this article aims to discuss the benefits of reading and how to promote it. The article first defines the term reading from different perspectives. It then illustrates the importance of reading and its relationship with national development. It also highlights the barriers to developing reading habits among Cambodians. The article concludes with suggestions to promote reading habits in Cambodia.

In my opinion, the TOS… Situating personal data literacy interventions

PurposeIt has been demonstrated that AI-powered, data-driven tools’ usage is not universal, but deeply linked to socio-cultural contexts. The purpose of this paper is to display the need of adopting situated lenses, relating to specific personal and professional learning about data protection and privacy.Design/methodology/approachThe authors introduce the results of a case study based on a large educational intervention at a fully online university. The views of the participants from degrees representing different knowledge areas and contexts of technology adoption (work, education and leisure) were explored after engaging in the analysis of the terms and conditions of use about privacy and data usage. After consultation, 27 course instructors (CIs) integrated the activity and worked with 823 students (702 of whom were complete and correct for analytical purposes).FindingsThe results of this study indicated that the intervention increased privacy-conscious online behaviour among most participants. Results were more contradictory when looking at the tools’ daily usage, with overall positive considerations around the tools being mostly needed or “indispensable”.Research limitations/implicationsThough appliable only to the authors’ case study and not generalisable, the authors’ results show both the complexity of privacy views and the presence of forms of renunciation in the trade-off between data protection and the need of using a specific software into a personal and professional context.Practical implicationsThis study provides an example of teaching and learning activities that supports the development of data literacy, with a focus on data privacy. Therefore, beyond the research findings, any educator can build over the authors’ proposal to produce materials and interventions aimed at developing awareness on data privacy issues.Social implicationsDeveloping awareness, understanding and skills relating to data privacy is crucial to live in a society where digital technologies are used in any area of our personal and professional life. Well-informed citizens will be able to obscure, resist or claim for their rights whenever a violation of their privacy takes place. Also, they will be able to support (through adoption) better quality apps and platforms, instead of passively accepting what is evident or easy to use.Originality/valueThe authors specifically spot how students and educators, as part of a specific learning and cultural ecosystem, need tailored opportunities to keep on reflecting on their degrees of freedom and their possibilities to act regarding evolving data systems and their alternatives.

Online disinformation – a multidimensional challenge

Along with other forms of hybrid threat, the phenomenon of disinformation is causing increasing concern to national governments, and also to the international community. The exposure of citizens to widespread disinformation represents a major challenge for civil society and authorities, for researchers and journalists. Open democratic societies depend on public debates that allow well-informed citizens to express their willingness through free and fair political processes. The media plays an essential role in providing information that enables citizens to form their own opinions and to engage effectively and actively in the life of democratic society. In the European Union, democracy is based on the existence of free and independent media. Facilitated access to diverse, quality information can increase participation in democratic processes, giving everyone the opportunity to get involved. Today, the Internet has greatly increased not only the volume and variety of news to that citizens have access, but has also profoundly changed the way citizens access and manage news. In this article, we will briefly present the European approach to the phenomenon of disinformation, widely reflected especially in the research carried out under the auspices of the European authorities, but we will also review the main studies available on this subject.

‘Partisan civility and civic education’*

ABSTRACT Education is central to creating well-informed citizens capable of participating in social and political life. However, civic education in some liberal democratic societies has often focused on teaching students the mechanics and structure of party politics, overlooking many of the public virtues that help to sustain democratic life. In this article we examine one such virtue, i.e., civility, and its role in party politics. We focus especially on partisan ‘civility as politeness,’ which entails the norms of politeness and etiquette that regulate partisans’ speech and behaviour during electoral campaigns and within legislatures. We analyse partisan civility as politeness and explore its connection with two other dimensions of partisan civility, i.e., ‘moral civility’ and ‘justificatory civility.’ We conclude by developing recommendations on how to advance civility in party politics by creating well-informed citizens and politicians who recognize the importance of civility in democratic life.

Clinical Legal Education—A Robust Instrument for Attainment of Justice: An Indian Perspective

Legal education is to serve the purpose of creating well-versed and proficient professionals who can render the best legal service to the people and help them get justice. Moreover, it is also to produce law-abiding and well-informed citizens who can carry out their duties in their professional life (irrespective of the nature of profession) for maintaining the rule of law. Along with a very strong foundation of substantive law, law students must also be oriented to the application of law during their undergraduate programme. This goal is to be realized through clinical legal education (CLE), which was introduced with an aim of combining the theory with practice. It also helps inculcate a sense of social justice in law students, as they closely see the application of law in a real life situation; they realize how law benefits people; they get closely connected to the society; they learn professional ethics; they develop problem solving approach; they get immeasurable satisfaction and confidence in the power of law; and more particularly, they comprehend that law is the real robust instrument to ensure and secure inclusive justice in the society. CLE, thus, makes the legal education all-inclusive and wholesome by making law students the agents of social change and champions of justice. This research article argues that CLE is indispensable for the attainment of inclusive justice. It also gauges the state of CLE in India from this perspective. Lastly, the article offers a few convincing suggestions which need to be incorporated in the legal education framework of India in order to ensure the higher goal of attainment of inclusive justice in India.

LIABILITY AND COMPENSATION OF DAMAGE FOR ACTS OF CORRUPTION

Corruption is the most dangerous social disease or the biggest social problem that civilization is facing in historical continuity. It is one of the most serious and widespread forms of crime in modern societies, regardless of whether the country is rich or poor, developed or underdeveloped or what kind of system it has. Hence, to speak of corruption as a phenomenon is a significant opportunity to get into the essence of this negative and widespread phenomenon, which penetrates deep into the pores of society and causes great harmful consequences to the overall social, economic, moral and other types of system. It can be said that corruption is the generator of the most serious threats today: wars, terrorism, organized crime and more. Given the seriousness of the problem of corruption, it is necessary to establish an interdisciplinary approach in the fight against it. The complexity of corruption itself necessarily requires its consideration from every aspect and the involvement of all means and instruments in the fight against it. Namely, although it is often thought that the notion of corruption should include only the criminal legal notion, criminalizing active and passive bribery and abuse of office by officials for the purpose of realizing some personal benefit for themselves or for someone else. Such a narrow approach does not coincide with the effective fight against corruption, because it is not only a violation of criminal law norms, but also of the administrative, social, moral and economic norms of a society. For these reasons, it is necessary to define corruption from a broader aspect, i.e., from a political-social aspect as a social evil that causes consequences in every sphere of society. Hence, this paper will try to answer some questions related to the legal institute - compensation for acts of corruption, as it can be an important tool in the fight against corruption in public administration. Namely, apart from the state itself and its organs, the citizens themselves who are victims of corruption can become an important tool in detecting and combating it. That is why it is necessary to raise public awareness about the possibility of compensating for the damage suffered by the corrupt acts of public servants. Well-informed citizens, who are aware of their rights and are ready to defend them, are a strong support of the system of social integrity. On the other hand, an apathetic public that does not know its rights and accepts abuse by the administration, creates a basis for the spread of corruption. The research should also show whether this institute can and is applied in our country, as well as to show the reasons for the current situation in terms of its practical application and implementation. Among other things, he will offer a series of measures and activities that need to be taken with the ultimate goal, improving the current situation and increasing the use of this tool in the fight against corruption.

Slavery in Secondary History Textbooks from the United States and Brazil

ABSTRACT The United States and Brazil were the two largest slave societies in the history of New World slavery, and the legacies of that history remain salient in both nations. Slavery and the slave trade are important topics to be taught in history courses, and future generations need to be given accurate information about the history and legacies of slavery to be well-informed citizens. A content analysis of textbooks used in the two countries compared how slavery was presented to students and assessed the degree to which the complexities and legacies of slavery were addressed. All of the textbooks (a) incorporated the history of slavery within national narratives of progress; (b) gave minimum attention to the unique experiences of women and indigenous people; and (c) presented a decontextualized view of slavery.

Science as Public Reason and the Controversiality Objection

We all agree that democratic decision-making requires a factual input, and most of us assume that when the pertinent facts are not in plain view they should be furnished by well-functioning scientific institutions. But how should liberal democracy respond when apparently sincere, rational and well-informed citizens object to coercive legislation because it is based on what they consider a misguided trust in certain parts of science? Cases are familiar, the most prominent concerning climate science and evolution, but one may also count GMO-skepticism and vaccine-skepticism, and there are plenty of others. The paper defends what I, borrowing an expression from Badiola, call Science as Public Reason, asserting roughly that some policy-relevant factual proposition P is part of public reason if and only if there is consensus about P among scientific experts in the relevant well-functioning scientific institutions. I defend this view against the controversiality objection claiming that scientific findings cannot in this general way pass as public reason as they are sometimes controversial among reasonable citizens. My preferred line of defense is what I call Dogmatism about Science as Public Reason, which roughly amounts to insisting on Science as Public Reason on the ground that it is a philosophically well-motivated view, while conceding that it may not be acceptable to all minimally rational and well-informed individuals.

The Twin Crises of Covid-19 and Racism: Pragmatic Mastery, Theory, Religion, and Ethics

Abstract In 2020, two crises emerged into prominence in the United States and other parts of the world: (1) the flourishing of the COVID-19 virus, in which the polarization and relativization of knowledge have hobbled efforts to prevent pandemic spread, and (2) the killing of George Floyd which has stirred worldwide protests against centuries of racial oppression and unbared an underlying racist ideology about the seemingly lesser value of Black people. It might seem that both these crises are unrelated, but this article argues that both crises are rooted in a common phenomenon, the surge of the pursuit of everyday pragmatic mastery beyond its legitimate boundary. This pursuit of mastery has instrumentalized structures of discourse, thereby undermining Alfred Schutz’s paradigm of the well-informed citizen seeking to understand dispassionately imposed relevances and the non-pragmatic provinces of meaning that might have restrained the pursuit of such mastery, such as the provinces of theoretical science and religious experience. As regards racism, the pursuance of such mastery results in transgressing and eliminating through violence the ethical boundaries the Levinasian other prescribes. These twin crises are not disparate happenings occurring now to remedy the tedium of the pandemic, but are bound together at the hip.

Role of education in implementing the sustainable development strategy

Our paper aims at assessing the role of education in implementing the strategy for sustainable development. We show how education might be used to promote the provisions set out by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the UNESCO Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We argue that sustainable education might help to give the young people necessary knowledge and skills that are required to understand what the SDGs represent and to take part in implementing the necessary changes and mitigating the climate change and the global warming as well-informed and concerned citizens. Understanding and embracing the concept of sustainability represents one of the main issues of the society and education plays a key role in that process. Thence, we think that the role of education is sustainable development strategy is crucial which requires additional support for education from the governments and private actors.

The Effects of Citizen Knowledge on the Effectiveness of Government Communications on Nuclear Energy Policy in South Korea

By analyzing survey data on nuclear energy policy in South Korea, this study examined the influence of citizens’ knowledge on the perceptions of and attitudes to government communication initiatives that are characterized by symmetry and transparency, and their effects in developing institutional legitimacy and policy acceptance. The findings indicate that symmetrical and transparent communication are involved in forming institutional legitimacy and policy acceptance of government decisions on the controversial topic of nuclear energy, but the process differs depending on citizens’ knowledge of the topic. Well-informed citizens who used reasoning were more likely than others to respond positively to symmetrical and transparent communication, which shaped their support for institutional legitimacy and policy acceptance on nuclear energy policy issues. These findings provide some of the first empirical evidence of the effectiveness of government communication.

“Hot-headed” students? Scientific literacy, perceptions and awareness of climate change in 15-year olds across 54 countries

The growth in global climate protests by students challenge the status quo of policy makers and political leaders in mitigating the effects of climate change. These events suggest that young people are increasingly well-informed and aware of environmental issues and the impact of increases in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. To investigate how well-informed students are on the issue of climate change, we have used secondary data from the Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA) [1], a cross-national study involving 540,000 students in 72 OECD and partner countries to explore students’ responses. Our analysis of these data provides unparalleled insight into fifteen-year-old students’ self-reported awareness about greenhouse gases and how this varies by achievement, enjoyment of and interest in science, students’ socio-economic status and country of origin. We find there are substantial global variations in students’ awareness of greenhouse gases, which is independent of the international ranking of PISA scores. Measures of scientific literacy have the greatest association with students’ awareness about greenhouse gases, although enjoyment of science and interest in broad scientific topics suggests that school science courses that are rigorous in content and enjoyable for students prepare them to be well-informed citizens about climate change. Given the global interest in issues of equity, we argue that both schools and curriculum designers have the ability to cultivate enjoyment and interest to build positive attitudes, awareness and responsibility towards the environment alongside the development of scientific literacy.

‘We are a neeeew generation’: Early adolescents’ views on news and news literacy

To function as well-informed citizens in democracy, early adolescents (12–16 years old) should become news literate news consumers. In this time of fragmented media use and evolving conceptions of (the importance and relevance of) news, this is not easy. Therefore, this focus group study investigated news consumption and news literacy through the eyes of early adolescents. Results showed that early adolescents have broad definitions of news. Their news consumption is predominantly passive, possibly due to a lack of intrinsic motivation. They see news as important, but often as boring, repetitive and negative, and disconnected from youth. Participants had knowledge of news content and effects, and stressed the importance of reliable news. However, for the majority, this did not translate into critical evaluation of news. For early adolescents, the key factor in becoming more news literate news consumers is motivation. Moving forward, motivation should be better incorporated in both research and practice.

Threat and Anxiety in the Climate Debate—An Agent-Based Model to Investigate Climate Scepticism and Pro-Environmental Behaviour

In order to meet the challenges of sustainable development, it is of utmost importance to involve all relevant decision makers in this process. These decision makers are diverse, including governments, corporations and private citizens. Since the latter group is the largest and the majority of decisions relevant to the future of the environment is made by that group, great effort has been put into communicating relevant research results to them. The hope is that well-informed citizens make well-informed choices and thus act in a sustainable way. However, this common but drastic simplification that more information about climate change automatically leads to pro-environmental behaviour is fundamentally flawed. It completely neglects the complex social-psychological processes that occur if people are confronted with threatening information. In reality, the defence mechanisms that are activated in such situations can also work against the goal of sustainable development, as experimental studies showed. Based on these findings, we propose an agent-based model to understand the relation between threatening climate change information, anxiety, climate change scepticism, environmental self-identity and pro-environmental behaviour. We find that the exposure to information about climate change, in general, does not increase the pro-environmental intent unless several conditions regarding the individual’s values and information density are met.

Communicating Science in the New Media Environment: The Advancement of Science Literacy

Science is the social foundation that encompasses all facets of life, from educating individuals, to allowing them to make informed decisions in their daily lives. Science is ultimately our way of learning about life; thus, the field of science education must acknowledge the significance of, and pressing need for scientific literacy in creating conscious, well-informed citizens in today’s world. The debate on the credibility of science content and information offered by media experts is especially pertinent to science communication. New media is the new sphere that allocates knowledge and its processing to various audiences. New media technologies have revolutionized the realm of interactivity, allowing for knowledge-sharing platforms to be among the novel digital forms of communications. This exploratory study discusses the fluctuating familiarity with the term “scientific literacy”, that extends beyond the use of skills. The purpose of this study is to examine the Egyptian public’s utilization and consumption of new media tools, with a focus on scientific information and popular science topics. Moreover, this study aims to examine the Egyptian public’s perception of the concept of “scientific literacy”, and delves deeper by investigating the different levels of science literacy that make an individual “scientifically-literate.” This study used an online questionnaire to assess motivation factors for new media preeminence in science communication in comparison to traditional media. The study also provided examination of success factors for the advancement of scientific literacy in Egypt, as well as factors prohibiting that advancement of scientific literacy.

“Do You Want to Be a Well-Informed Citizen, or Do You Want to Be Sane?” Social Media, Disability, Mental Health, and Political Marginality

This article examines the experiences of people with disabilities, a traditionally marginalized group in US politics, with social media platforms during the 2016 presidential election. Using focus groups with participants with a wide range of disabilities, the significance of YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook is discussed. Results highlight ambivalent experiences with these platforms, which support some elements of political inclusion (more accessible and more relevant election information) but at the same time also exacerbate aspects of marginality (stress, anxiety, isolation). Four coping strategies devised by participants to address digital stress (self-censorship, unfollowing/unfriending social media contacts, signing off, and taking medication) are illustrated. The relationship between these contrasting findings, social media design and affordances, as well as potential strategies to eliminate an emerging trade-off between discussing politics online and preserving mental health and social connectedness for people with disabilities are discussed.

Gender-based Violence in Lithuania during Late-Soviet Period and Post-Soviet Transformation

The aim of this article is to research the concept and different definitions of gender-based violence in Lithuanian society during the late Soviet period and the first decade of Lithuanian independence. These different definitions of gender-based violence are reconstructed and presented in the different discourses of criminological knowledge and beliefs: a) the expert criminological discourse; b) the so-called discourse of the ‘well-informed citizens’; c) the so-called discourse of the ‘people from the street’. The theory of three different criminilogical discourses in Lithuanian crimininology is developed by Aleksandras Dobryninas but based on theoretical insights of Alfred Schütz. The article analyzes the third level from the perspectives‘ of the victims of gender-based violence.

Media Literacy – Creative Development of the Skills and Knowledge for the Education in the 21st Century

Media literacy enables primarily children, future citizens for the political choices, to understand political discourse and participation within it. In this way, as mature, media literate, well-informed citizens they will be able to make their own decisions about the democratic electoral process. However, adolescents, young people and adults as well as the oldest citizens often need to be media-literate, especially due to the fact that in the age of new media and new technologies, the knowledge that we possess becomes obsolete very quickly and it is certainly necessary to participate in lifelong learning and within the media literacy of all generations of citizens. Media literacy has dual meaning – as an concept is defined as ability of the approach, analyses, evaluation and transmission of the messages through the media while the essential focus of media literacy is to overmaster with critic and creative skills, knowledge that are of help to connect complex ideas, constantly questioning manifestations, attempt to recognize answers that will satisfy congenital curiosity of any of us, but also to identify individual, and even wider, social deceits. This paper will also present scientific relationship in regards “critical vs. creative thinking about the media and vice versa” and methodology focused on media education and/or education of the media and how to upgrade digital literacy with media literacy by the author in 2018, based on the model of Venkatesh & Devis, from 2000. Media literate society is healthy society of new technological awareness that will unify understanding of tradition and new technologies, that will, within the interaction, help the society to create newly established relations within education on verifiable facts which are so very much visible in the post-modern society of the 21 st century. Media literacy enables nation(s) to recognize hidden agendas within the transmission of information not just within the media, but also within the society as the whole, especially within the education. For the purpose of the life-long learning, regardless if we have media literacy as obligatory module in the primary and/or secondary school of we have it within the general educationally planned process of the society as a grown-ups.

APPROBATION OF A VALIDATION QUALITY ASSURANCE SYSTEM

Qualified and well-informed citizens are of paramount importance for United Europe's development and prosperity. The issue of their education extends beyond formal education and covers knowledge and skills acquired informally or independently. Public opinion is that well-realized lifelong learning can make a lot of contribution both to the economic development of the countries and to the development of civil society and culture.In the modern world, there is a tendency for change from mass production to the individual one - more and more people want products and services that are specially created according to their personal preferences, they want to be distinguished from others in their possessions, they want to stand out. This trend finds its place in the field of education too: learners want to be able to make choices about what to learn and what not to, to acquire knowledge and skills that will distinguish them from others and make them more competitive in the labor market. But in times of financial crisis, and in some countries like Bulgaria - even when there is none, the education expenditures in the state budget are insufficient, especially for those that are not part of the formal structure of educational institutions. This is also a challenge of the lifelong learning: to provide personalization of learning on the one hand, and on the other to achieve economies of scale so that the unit cost of this education is tolerable for the country concerned.Bulgarian citizens, like everyone else, need to be able to show what they have learned in order to be able to get a promotion at work and/or to have the right to continue their education at higher levels of the formal one. To do this, the individuals need to have access to a system that validates knowledge and skills, that is, one that identifies, documents, evaluates and certifies all forms of training.The demanding market and growing competition require that in the regulatory framework of any validation system, a validation quality assurance system is to be set up and implemented. The scope of this system includes all validation actions in the particular school. Its tasks are related to: 1) identification of the factors influencing the quality of validation in the particular vocational school, 2) determination of the guidelines for correcting the impact of those factors in the desired direction, 3) definition of the system-specific criteria and indicators allowing effective analysis and improvement of the validation process to be carried out.This paper presents the results of the approbation of such a system created for the needs of the Bulgarian vocational schools for the realization of the project "New opportunity for my future".