Media Literacy

What is media literacy?

The European Commission's media literacy page gives the definition used in EU law: "The European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) defines it as", in the page's words, "skills, knowledge and understanding which allow citizens to use media effectively and safely and which are not limited to learning about tools and technologies but aim to equip citizens with the critical thinking skills required to exercise judgment, analyse complex realities and recognise the difference between opinion and fact".

The European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) notes on its media literacy page that "Media literacy is defined in various different ways."

It gives an older EU wording: "The European Commission defines media literacy as an umbrella expression that includes all the technical, cognitive, social, civic and creative capacities that allow a citizen to access, have a critical understanding of the media and interact with it, as outlined in Recital 47 of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD)."

UNESCO's programme page says that media and information literacy "provides a set of essential skills to address the challenges of the 21st century including the proliferation of mis- and disinformation and hate speech". In the United States, the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) defines it in one line: "The ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act using all forms of communication."

How is media literacy different from digital, information and news literacy?

The European sources treat these literacies as closely linked. The Commission's guidelines for teachers and educators (revised edition, 2026) define digital literacy as "the ability to access, manage, understand, integrate, communicate, evaluate, create, and disseminate information safely and appropriately through digital technologies", and add: "It includes competences that are variously referred to as information literacy and media literacy, computer, and ICT literacy."

The Commission's media literacy page puts the two side by side: "Because media and digital literacy are integral part of citizenship skills, they are critical for democracy." UNESCO joins media and information literacy in one term and pairs it with digital skills: it "supports the development of Media and Information Literacy and Digital Competencies for all".

None of these sources gives news literacy a definition of its own. The Commission's guidelines list it beside the others, pointing teachers to "International networks of teachers and educators interested in teaching about digital literacy, media literacy, news and information literacy and addressing disinformation."

Which skills does media literacy cover?

Media literacy covers checking who is behind a message, judging its content and context, recognising manipulation, and understanding how platforms select what people see.

In the Civic Resilience Course, announced in October 2021, Debunk.org "focused on teaching the participants of CRC course four basic skills: recognizing frequently occurring types of disinformation, evaluating the trustworthiness of sources, checking the origin of images and videos to see if they were manipulated in some way, and gaining a basic understanding of how social media/search engine algorithms work".

Debunk.org teaches a 3-step analysis method, on which our Disinformation Analyst course is also based. As LRT reported in June 2025, citing Debunk.org analyst Jovita Tautkevičiūtė, it means answering three sets of questions in turn: ‘1. who published the information (the source), 2. what the purpose of the content is, and 3. in what context it is presented?’ (our translation).

NAMLE's principles add the maker's side: media literacy education "prioritizes media creation as an essential learning practice in building media literacy skills".

The National Disinformation Literacy Exam

Since 2024, Lithuania's Government Office and Debunk.org have run a National Disinformation Literacy Exam for pupils in grades 9 to 12 every year. In the first exam, as LRT reported in May 2024, ‘107 pre-registered grade 9–12 classes from 61 schools in the country took part: nearly 2,000 pupils from 33 Lithuanian cities and towns’ (our translation).

Each exam starts with a lesson. In 2024, ‘the pupils discussed disinformation, artificial intelligence and social media algorithms with disinformation analysis experts in a lecture’ (our translation). In 2025 the lecture was given by our analyst Jovita Tautkevičiūtė, LRT announced.

In 2025, LRT reported, ‘nearly 2,500 [pupils] from more than 130 classes (grades 9–12) took part’ (our translation). The results ‘showed that pupils are basically able to recognise disinformation, but still have difficulty applying the 3-step analysis method’ (our translation).

Jovita Tautkevičiūtė explained where pupils went wrong: ‘As this year's test showed, pupils often lack clarity about which question to ask at which step.’ At the first step, ‘many pupils paid attention not to the source but to visual details: they looked for where the image used came from.’ And: ‘Although this is important, image analysis belongs to the second step: assessing the content.’ (our translation)

For autumn 2026, the registration announcement said the exam would start with ‘an interactive lesson in which pupils will work through, in practice, how to recognise manipulation, assess information they find online and not give in to misleading content’ (our translation).

According to LRT's report of 22 October 2026, ‘3,249 pupils from 263 classes took part in the exam in total’ (our translation). In it, ‘pupils tested their ability to tell facts from manipulation, recognise content created by artificial intelligence (AI), assess the reliability of information sources and understand how social media algorithms work’ (our translation).

Debunk.org's other media literacy programmes

Before the exam, our media literacy work took three forms: a localised game, training for university students and online digital literacy courses. The first was a Baltic project: "Throughout May-December of 2020 Debunk ran a media literacy project in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia with a goal to increase the resilience amongst the citizens of the Baltic countries through a gamified media literacy program."

For it, our project report explains, "the BadNews game developed by DROG with Cambridge University was chosen as a possible solution to address the media literacy needs in the Baltics". The report records: "In total, 6 pages were created for the BadNews game – one for Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian audiences, alongside with a Russian version for each of those three countries."

"47 cases were selected to be adapted in the game from all three countries, choosing news stories which have received the most attention from the audiences." The report's title gives its reach: "118 000 citizens in the Baltics played the BadNews game". It also gives the share of older players: "in Lithuania, 55 years and older players constituted 40%, in Latvia 28%, and in Estonia 35% of all players".

Training for students followed in 2021. For the Disinformation Resilience Training for Gen Z, Debunk.org organised "a two-day training for university students, full of games, lectures, and discussions". The Civic Resilience Course, planned for university students, set out to teach the four skills above "in just 90 minutes".

Debunk.org also works on the American Spaces Digital Literacy and Training Program. Its programme page states: "The American Spaces Office launched a 5-year program in the fall of 2023 to strengthen the culture of digital literacy, critical thinking, and countering disinformation." The page says it is implemented by PH International in partnership with Debunk.org and the Georgian Centre for Strategy and Development.

The page adds: "In this project, we developed four standardized hybrid online digital literacy courses." and "These courses are offered both offline and online in 18 languages and across 16 countries."

Our team published three texts in April 2024 on how such programmes are built and measured. The overview of good practices and potential problems is based on a review in which "69 existing media literacy courses, PDFs, guides for Media and Information Literacy (MIL) teachers, games, and various reports have been analyzed".

The text on methodologies concludes that "A carefully selected mix of methodologies is important in developing effective educational approaches to disinformation and media literacy", and that "it is essential to remember that there is no one-size-fits-all recipe for success".

How does media literacy help against disinformation?

Media literacy can help in two ways: by showing people the techniques of manipulation before they meet them, and by giving them ways to judge sources and content when they do.

Our project report describes the mechanism of the game we localised: "The BadNews game, which is based on Inoculation Theory, confers resistance against disinformation by putting players in the position of those creating it." The exam works from real material: ‘According to the organisers, the exam tasks were based on real examples of disinformation from recent years and on information security threats’ (our translation).

The European Commission makes the link to foreign interference explicit: "Media literacy also contributes to societal resilience against disinformation and foreign information manipulation and interference by helping individuals detect and counter misleading and harmful content."

Warning people about such techniques in advance is called prebunking; our page on what debunking is explains how it differs from debunking.

Does media literacy training work?

There is evidence that it can. Our exam results moved in the right direction: in LRT's report on the 2025 exam, ‘In 2025 the average of correct answers was 56%, in 2024 33%’ (our translation). The reports do not say whether the two exams used the same questions, and the pupils were different, so the rise is not a measured effect of teaching.

For the Baltic BadNews project, our report says: "To measure the impact of the project, we carried out two surveys: one general, and one of people who played the Bad News game." It found "that those who did play the game started perceiving the information online more critically and did not trust it as much as they did before".

In the report, published in March 2021, "35.5% of citizens under 34 years old in Lithuania have stated that their resilience has increased, which is a great result compared to the average of 22.35%". This figure is self-reported ("have stated").

Our 2021 report summed up Roozenbeek and van der Linden's Cambridge research as showing that "the perceived reliability of fake news before playing the BadNews game had reduced by an average of 21% after completing it". Their 2019 study itself reports its results as mean reliability ratings: "We conducted a large-scale evaluation of the game with N = 15,000 participants in a pre-post gameplay design."

In the authors' own words: "We thus lack a traditional control group and the results should be considered within the context of a non-randomised pre-post repeated measures design."

Not every programme is evaluated, as our 2024 text on outcomes, KPIs and engagement shows when it quotes EDMO: "European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) notes that ‘of the 68 media and information literacy projects analysed by the Council of Europe’s Committee of Experts on quality journalism in the digital age, one-third did not undergo any form of evaluation or assessment.’"

The same text cautions: "However, measuring before and after of a particular ML intervention is not the ideal way of capturing the impact."

How can you practise it: games, courses and guides

You can practise media literacy with a game that puts you in the manipulator's seat, with short online courses, and with guides written for teachers. Our overview of programmes suggests that "Gamification seems to be a powerful tool in improving critical thinking and identifying manipulation techniques in social media posts."

Our Bad News game pages can be played in English and, among other languages, in Polish. All our language versions are listed on our media literacy games page.

InfoShield is our online course on resilience to disinformation. Like the exam, it works through the source, the content and the context; its programme page tells learners: "You will learn to discern credible sources, evaluate content, and understand the impact of context." The format is short and self-contained: "You will get a set of short articles (stories), videos, and quizzes."

The course is now hosted on our academy: "InfoShield is now on Debunk Academy, in an updated version with videos and a certificate." Its Lithuanian version is InfoSkydas; LRT described it as ‘the free digital course InfoSkydas, created by Debunk.org, which is designed for learning to recognise false and misleading information’ (our translation).

Other courses on our site include the American Spaces digital literacy courses and the Disinformation Analyst course.

Our FIMI 101 course, a 10-hour, self-paced online course, covers the skills and tools to recognise, analyse and counter AI-driven disinformation and FIMI campaigns.

For teachers and trainers, our text on methodologies starts from the audience: "When designing a digital literacy program, it is important to tailor the materials and methods to the specific needs and characteristics of the target audience." At European level, according to the Commission, "EDMO adopted in October 2024 Guidelines for Effective Media Literacy Initiatives".

What media literacy does not do

Programmes can fall short, and our overview of programmes lists common weaknesses: "These include issues such as oversimplified narratives, lack of cultural relevance, and limited evaluation metrics, as well as the risk of oversimplifying complex topics." It also warns that "Some programs may exhibit bias or partisanship in their content, potentially undermining their credibility and trustworthiness among participants."

The same 2024 review suggests a gap in coverage: "the exploration of AI's influence on the creation and dissemination of disinformation remains largely unaddressed within educational curricula". The exam showed a limit of a different kind: pupils who can spot disinformation may still check things in the wrong order, as described in the exam section above.

Frequently asked questions

Why is media literacy important?

The European Commission puts it plainly: "Media literacy is a crucial skill for all citizens, irrespective of their age, social, cultural or economic background."

How do you teach media literacy to students?

Through active methods that let students build their own understanding, and through practice on real cases, as in our national exam. Our text on methodologies suggests that "In terms of learning theories, constructivist learning appears to be the most fitting."

Is media literacy the same as critical thinking?

No. Critical thinking is part of it: the EU definition quoted at the top of this page says media literacy aims to give citizens critical thinking skills, alongside knowing how to use media effectively and safely.