European Central: Media Literacy Education Is Growing Across Europe. But There’s Still More To Learn From Finland.
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Across Europe, the challenge to keep up with new technology is a constant one. Artificial intelligence is currently grabbing the headlines, but over 65% of Europeans come across news they say misrepresents reality several times a month, and the vast majority see fake news as a danger to democracy.
Most European nations are actively trying to combat this. With social media regulations in schools, AI safety and development plans, and classes on media literacy concurrently coming into effect, Europe is taking strides to prepare its citizens for a digital future.
But Finland has consistently been ahead of the curve. In 2014, multi-literacy, the idea of literacy expanding beyond just writing to include images, animation, and music, became part of the national curriculum for pupils of all ages. In the decade since, it has been supplemented recently with restrictions on the use of mobile phones during the school day. As the rest of Europe slowly catches up to Finland, what can nations learn from Finnish policy?
What Finland Got Right
Finland might not be the first place that comes to mind when one thinks of the leading media literacy practices, but the nation has vast experience. Starting back in 2014, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the wave of misinformation that came with it, the Finnish government acted decisively to prepare its citizens.
It started with media literacy lessons for students. Starting in elementary school, Finnish students are exposed to digital tools to build familiarity. Sometimes, it's as simple as researching images or sounds they find funny in order to gain experience using the internet.
As they get older, children start to learn from their teachers about whether the information they find is reliable, and in subsequent years, they begin to conduct and compile their own research. Famous historical propaganda campaigns become lessons, misleading and manipulated statistics become case studies, and the necessary terminology, such as the difference between misinformation and disinformation, becomes slowly ingrained.
Exposure and analysis of media isn’t the only educational tenet; actively participating in creating content also gives perspective on how bias can sneak into media. Children in Finland create videos and online stories, and are taught about journalistic media and ethics.
But this isn’t all done in one class. One core element of Finland’s approach has been the concept of “multi-literacy,” which is built around information analysis being a skill for life across different media and not an individual course. As more and more information is disseminated online, its accuracy impacts every area of a person’s life. Whether that information involves false medical claims, deepfakes, or propaganda, it can inspire violent real-world consequences, and those consequences are not confined to one field or another.
This is why Finland has mobilized to ensure its citizens are well-prepared. Besides direct education policy and government support from the National Audiovisual Institute (KAVI), libraries offer workshops and access to media and media literacy training, while NGOs provide training for older adults, and social media awareness campaigns help combat misinformation.
All of this has led to Finland leading the entire continent in the European Media Literacy Index since its launch in 2017.
What Europe Has Learned So Far
The rest of Europe has been taking note of Finland’s progress. While there are certainly still gaps between Finland’s media literacy education and that of its neighbors, there is growing momentum and visible progress in other nations.
In France, the government’s Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education have built the Centre for Media and Information Education (CLEMI) to support libraries and schools in their teaching. In 2021 and 2022, the Media Pluralism Monitor found that media literacy programs were strong, despite unequal support and implementation across the country.
Germany, too, has strong support for media literacy programs, with a well-developed school curriculum. But it also faces shortfalls when it comes to levels of adoption, funding, and organization, as the issue remains a state-by-state matter.
On the fact-checking front, Germany, Spain, Bulgaria, Austria, and Portugal all have connections to MediaWise’s Teen Fact-Checking Network. These programs also train young people to identify false information online and hold workshops about videos on social media, where most younger people get their news.
There are, of course, many nations that have yet to adopt comprehensive media literacy programs, such as Romania, which suffers from an underfunded education system and digitally illiterate educators. But generally, Europe is slowly catching up to Finland, and Finland is happy to help.
Kari Kivinen, a former headmaster in Helsinki, began working as the European Union Intellectual Property Office’s education outreach expert in 2020, and has helped to bridge the knowledge gap for nations developing their own curricula. The EU plans to have 80% of its adult population digitally literate by 2030, with digital literacy being defined as the ability to recognize misinformation, recognize sponsored content, and be willing to fact-check.
More recently, Kivinen is working to update the Digital Competence Framework for citizens, and the European Commission’s Revision of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) and creation of policies, strategies, and international research groups are very notable steps towards encouraging smart media literacy policy amongst member states. But Finland’s education system is extremely well funded, and while Europe is reaching a point where it is taking media literacy seriously, there is still room to grow.
The Next Frontier
There remain several main issues facing European nations regarding media literacy. One is its uneven spread across nations, as most education takes place in schools and leaves vulnerable children and adults without practice or training.
Finland tackles this with its wide net of NGOs, including the Finnish Society on Media Education, Mannerheim League for Child Welfare, Save the Children Finland, the Finnish Parents’ League, the Finnish 4H Organisation, and the Youth Work Centres of Expertise. All of these organizations raise awareness on information backed by research, share good practices, train educators, and coordinate with international organizations handling similar work.
Unlike Finland's comprehensive education curriculum at the national level, many nations still have disjointed curricula and state-by-state adoption rates. More importantly, however, is the fact that while Finland offers both technical and information skills, many other nations focus on the former more than the latter. This has been shown to directly correlate with a lower chance of positive outcomes when it comes to digital literacy interventions.
One final hurdle is the meteoric rise of generative AI, something that nations across the world are scrambling to create guardrails for. Europe has already set international standards with its EU AI Act, which is slowly coming into effect over this year and the next, but once again, Finland has Europe beat by almost 8 years.
One project, Generation AI, has been run by the University of Eastern Finland, University of Helsinki and University of Oulu. The project gives resources to researchers, teachers, and the general public on what AI is, how it is used, and how to navigate a world where it is increasingly prevalent. There are also older public education initiatives, such as the University of Helsinki’s free Elements of AI online course, which began in 2018.
With a wider education net, consolidation of media literacy curricula, and a mobilization of NGOs and government support, Finland has proven that a resilience to disinformation is actively fostered, not simply hoped for. While AI poses the risk of becoming a Pandora’s box that dwarfs modern media literacy initiatives, Finland is leading the way towards a more stable and trustworthy digital future. And while it has made great progress, Europe still stands to learn a thing or two.
