Information and Media Literacy (IML) as a method of fostering critical thinking and media awareness is already incorporated in school curricula around the world, but remains completely absent from the Lebanese educational system. Students study philosophy, literature, translation and history (amongst other subjects), while no initiatives for media or new information technologies are offered to students at any grade level. Rather than creating a new subject to teach this important material, media literacy should be integrated into existing subjects. ̢

Overall Objectives: 
Information and media literacy (IML) aims to transform the process of media consumption from a passive one-way process into an active and critical process. After such training and adopting such practices, students will better understand the role of mass media and participatory media in constructing views of reality. IML provides tools to help students critically analyze messages to detect propaganda, censorship, and bias in news and public affairs programming, and to understand how structural features, such as media ownership, or its funding, affect the information presented.
Activities: 
Training workshops will be conducted for teachers (in English, Arabic, and French) to train them in specific elements of the program. In addition special workshops and presentations by our trainers will be given directly to students, especially regarding the participatory elements of the program (such as participation on the website, and creating articles for the student training newspaper, presented in the next section). The IML workshops and curriculum teach practical, current, and hands-on media skills in order to introduce students to IML and to the development, history, and nature of mass media. The syllabus for the IML workshop will be based on the 5 core concepts developed by the Center for Media Literacy, adapted to the Lebanese media spectrum. The Lebanese media will be our main source of documentation and case study examples (articles, archives, selected cuts from TV prime news, radio talk shows, etc) will be analyzed, along with teachers and their students.
Start Date
Tue, 25/08/2009 - 3:00am
Project Status
N/A
Project Timeframe
N/A
Intervention Sector(s):
N/A
Project Location:
N/A
Collaboration with Other Organisations
N/A