Maria Donde, Off- In the UK, where we are the UK's communications regulator, media regulator, and I'm also here representing, which I'll be mostly talking about, the EPRAN network of media regulators in Europe. My question was incredibly useful to have a copy of your slides actually because I found it really fascinating and I was just wondering you mentioned sort of quite early on the fact that there needs to be that media literacy in itself is no longer enough and that there needs to be technical solutions given the scale and the sort of the immense nature of the problem with which we are confronted. And I just wondered whether you could say a little bit more about the interaction between media literacy education, lifelong learning, these critical skills that you've been talking about and what those technical tools might be how would they interact with each other yeah so for example i think it's not only in germany but also i think you have a lot of very excellent projects in united kingdom for example um especially so in science you you have kind of, for example, for me, a good example of kind of public-private partnerships in projects. If universities are cooperating with companies to develop new tools and try them out kind of a co-creative way with the citizens. So if they're using it and something like that, that's, I think this is very important, but that could be a way. So that's kind of a bottom up solution, not only top down. So it's kind of a, I, I'm more concerned about the process. I'm not so that concerned about the end product. It's how we can achieve it. And I think that could be a good process. So like, so what is called public-private partnership in other areas, I don't have the exact term for the media area, but it could be some kind of co-creation. That makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, I guess I'm quite interested also in trying to understand what the tools would look like. Yeah. But actually, I share your probably deeper interest in the process and in that cooperation, which is actually exactly what I'm here to talk about. But I'll let you answer any other questions before I go on. But thank you very much, Maria, for this perspective. Yeah. There's one question in the chat. What is the difference between disinformation and misinformation? Yeah, Tanja, thank you very much for this excellent question. So, it's very interesting. So, it's like I, being an audience researcher, I would say it's from the perspective of the user. And it's also from the perspective of the communicator. What are the intentions? So it's like disinformation and misinformation. It's more like the difference between what is intended and what not, what is like an unintentional thing. and what not, what is like of unintentional thing. So it's disinformation for me, it's always strategic thinking. It's a strategic thinking. It should be forced. And the other misinformation is also what happens every day. If we talk to each other, I think like Niklas Luhmann, a German sociologist, would say, oh, it's a wonder if we understand each other. That would be one answer to it. Jeffrey, you had slightly problems with your connection, so we didn't get your first two sentences, I think. The last few sentences, the last famous last words. So it's like I would say the difference between dis- and misinformation always relates to the intention. The This and misinformation always relates to the intention. The source, he wants to miss the people or unintentional. So that's the main difference. Some technical problems now it's getting better okay so my time is running up I think now the platforms are saying to me I have to thank you the floor should be open for Maria but I think Helmut The platforms are saying to me I have to thank you. The floor should be open for Maria, but I think Helmut wants to introduce you. Yeah, thank you, Jeffrey. I had also another question in mind, but I think that will fit also with the discussion for Maria a bit later. And I just would like to first thank Maria that you are with us today. And I promised Jeffrey to give a short introduction because we are knowing each other since a while. Normally, if it was possible, meeting in Strasbourg at the Council of Europe with some expert groups, but now the first time in an online seminar. So Maria, you work for the UK Office of Communication for the Ofcom as the head of the international content policy. So this means covering media content and broadcasting issues. And you lead Ofcom's engagement with other European media regulators and also by the platform of EPRA, which means the European Platform of Media Authorities. And you have been also involved in EU negotiations on the artificial media directive and with other institutions, I think. You are very much engaged also with the Council of Europe, which is for me, very important level of discussion about media policy, because there we talk about media always in front of the human rights. This makes a big difference if we talk about media for the interest of profit and business, or if we talk really always related to human rights and how we can proceed there. And that, I think, is also crucial when we come to media literacy. And I think that's also why, with the Council of Europe, media literacy is also very relevant. But that we will come later, maybe, is this everything? Or who is also responsible for compensate for misdevelopment, let's say, in general, on the bracket. So, well, Maria, you will speak about EPRA, about the upcoming of the issue of media information literacy of the task force there, how this could evolve to and spread to national levels. And I think at the latest stage, there is also a new form of inviting external experts to a new platform at APRA to have exchange to a new platform at APRA to have exchange on media and information literacy. So, Maria, the floor is yours, please. Thank you. Thank you so much for that kind introduction and for the invitation to participate today. I'm delighted to be able to speak to all of you and apologies for not being able to speak in German. So apologies for not being able to speak in German and for requiring so much English to be spoken, but hopefully it's also helpful for some others. I am particularly keen on the title of the conference that you've chosen today, which is, you know, looking at who is responsible for media literacy, because that is exactly the kind of the area that we focus on within the media regulatory community, and what I'm hoping to talk about in a bit more detail today. In particular, as you say, I'm going to be telling you a little bit about the creation of this new network of networks of media literacy, which we've created in EPRA within our network of media regulators. It's called EMIL, and I will talk about it in a bit more detail. And I should say also, you know, that notion of kind of network of networks is really inspired by the Gap Mill project and UNESCO's work in this area. And it was really, really fascinating. And again, as always inspirational to hear from Alton earlier today, because the way that he kind of contextualizes and gives a full picture of the importance of media and information literacy and why we do all of this work, I think is always an incredibly useful and timely reminder. And thank you again also to Geoffrey for the really, really excellent kind of introduction to the specific topic of critical understanding, which I think is, everyone can agree, is critical indeed in our work. So I'm just going to share my screen. Bear with me one second. Okay. So one moment. Go into presentation mode. Sorry. There we go. Can I just check, Helmut, that you can see this? Yes, it's perfect. And everything's good. Good, good, because I can't see. So, yes, just a few words of background on some of our work, and I'll talk a little bit about Emil. First, just to introduce EPRA itself. EPRA is the oldest and largest network of broadcasting media audiovisual regulators in Europe. We were set up in 1995 to cooperate and exchange information, best practices and cases between broadcasting regulators. We've obviously developed quite widely since then. broadcasting regulators. We've obviously developed quite widely since then. We now have 54 regulatory authorities from 47 countries as part of our membership and those numbers reflect the fact that some countries have more than one media regulatory authority within them. We also number as our permanent observers institutions such as the European Commission, the Council of Europe of course, the Audiovisual Observatory and the OSCE's representative for the freedom of the media. So although we don't necessarily reach any kind of common positions or develop policies ourselves, we have a very very broad audience and participate very actively in European debates. Obviously, Ofcom itself is an extremely active member. I'm on the board of EPRA and I'm here today talking as one of the vice chairs of the organisation. So EPRA has been doing work on media and information literacy for over 15 years now uh probably it's been a recurring topic in our work program since 2008 um and what we've seen is an increase in um the number of our members so media regulatory authorities uh who have i skipped ahead strange um let me just do that. So apologies. This is my very poor PowerPoint usage. I don't know why it keeps skipping ahead. Try that. So, since 2008, we've been, okay, I can't make it stop moving. So, I'm just going to stop sharing my slides. And you've seen them all now. So, I'll just circulate them afterwards. And let me just speak to you you. So we've had an increase in the number of regulators who have specific statutory duties to promote media and information literacy. In 2014, when we conducted a large mapping exercise, there were about 15 and another eight who had related responsibilities. And I think we anecdotally know that that number is growing exponentially. Just very quickly to say the things that regulators do in relation to media literacy is quite broad actually so how they interpret this concept of promotion of media literacy that can range from research, reporting, activity, education awareness, and indeed the development of educational materials, sometimes running campaigns, content classification, which is an interesting sort of area of overlap between information remedies and regulation. And of course, multi-stakeholder collaboration. And I think that's kind of the area of that public-private partnership almost that Geoffrey was talking about, which I really want to focus on today as well. We've significantly intensified our work in this area for the last three or four years. In 2017, we ran a working group as part of our work programme to consider in detail what the role of regulators is and should be in this area. And let me share with you just a couple of the findings from that year, which I think are really, really important. We saw the increased relevance and importance of media literacy to audiovisual media regulators, and that was particularly in the case of growing responsibilities, increased responsibilities for the online space. So any kind of services that are available online, falling to some audiovisual media regulators to be responsible for oversight and media literacy has to play a critical role in any kind of oversight activity of that kind. Media literacy is also really complementary to the work of regulators. There's a lot that we do, which is to do with organising and overseeing the activities and the direction of our stakeholders. And of course, media as well. And I think there's already been a bit discussed and it's particularly relevant, I think, in the context of community community media about exactly what role media plays in educating and disseminating information about media literacy and understanding of itself to its public. and understanding of itself to its public. We also really identified the need for cross-sector collaboration and collaboration generally, and actually in particular, the role that regulators might play in helping to identify resources and indeed help projects to identify resources. But most importantly, I think we alighted on this concept of network facilitation, cooperation facilitation, and coordination of activity by regulators of all of the different actors that happen to be involved in media literacy activities. And there's a huge range of actors and of participants in this field. So that felt like a very natural role for regulators to be involved in that kind of coordination and, you know, and for EPRA for that reason as well to be involved in. So in 2018, we formed the task force of media and information literacy in EPRA, which meant we could take media literacy outside of the narrower confines of our work program and have a regular ongoing exchange of information best practices and discussion on this topic we published a few guidance documents that year on setting up networks which could of course be be useful and relevant to um to to those in austria who are interested in in exploring this idea uh interacting with stakeholders and um an evaluation of media literacy uh projects and activity because of course regulators are very very keen on measuring things um uh in 2019 we picked up again in our work program and focused a lot on international collaboration and the way that regulators and media literacy actors can can share resources and and and develop partnerships across borders which we thought was really important we also I think because of the growing confidence that we felt as a group as a group of media literacy regulators, we, I think, felt that we were able to speak in slightly more of a voice. And so we invited Google and Facebook to talk to us about their activity and their work in media literacy so that we could have a, you know, a fairly robust discussion with them about what they were doing. And that discussion, you know, very much informed the work that we did last year. So 2020 was a bit of a cardinal year for EPRA and for EPRA's media literacy activities because of the pandemic. So we were forced into virtual meetings and working, but actually for us, that was really an opportunity and one which we grasped very actively. So because we had the opportunity to have these virtual meetings and we weren't so much tied to the regular conferences that we always held, you know, in different countries, which might be difficult to travel to and so on and so forth, we were able to invite a far greater range of people to participate in our discussions about media literacy and media literacy networks um and we did that via a series of round tables which we ran in the autumn um to which we invited you know a number of different bodies who are active in in coordinating media literacy activities so not not regulators, not media regulators, but doing quite similar things. You know, and you could say that, in fact, it was the media regulators who were doing similar things to those other older, more established coordination bodies. But we certainly used the opportunity to learn from from each other. So we were able to bring together organisations who had lots and lots of experience of setting up networks and running networks and getting the most out of networks and multi-stakeholder engagement with those who were just starting out. So we were able to really, really benefit from the experience of the more experienced members. And I know that actually some you will hear from the Irish Media Literacy Network tomorrow. And I think that's that's like one of our kind of driving members, to be honest, that they, you know, have a huge amount to say and to contribute on this topic. So we ran these these roundtables and they were very well attended. And they enabled us to open out our network quite significantly. We also published a document which was some reflections that we wanted to share on the responsibilities of platforms and indeed others in relation to media and information literacy and I'll give a very very quick summary of that paper that we wrote at the end of my talk. But just to finish up on last year's activity, we also developed a bit more of a knowledge base about what regulators were doing in the context of particularly using media literacy to tackle disinformation in the COVID year. Well, the first COVID year, we should say. But most importantly, of course, what we ended up doing at the end of last year was to formalise this taskforce and to lay the ground for the formal creation of the EMIL group within network, within EPRA. So the EMIL stands for EPRA Media and Information Literacy Task Force and it's our new network of networks which has as its members a number of different types of organisations. So primarily EPRA members, so regulators, but also bodies which coordinate media and information literacy at the national level. I'm talking about organizations like the Conseil Supérieur de l'Éducation et des Médias in French-speaking Belgium, MediaVaize, both in MediaVidza, both in Flemish speaking Belgium and in the Netherlands, and a number of international bodies like the Audiovisual Observatory, like the newly formed EDMO. We have networks which are sometimes supported by or coordinated by regulators or sometimes independent networks, coordinated by regulators or sometimes independent networks, and of course, media and civil society. And we hope to encourage others to join, but the Community and Media Forum of Europe is of course one of our founding members, we should say. So we're really, really keen to stress, I think, the importance of all of these different types of organisations in coming together and supporting media and information literacy activity at the European level. So why do we need Emil and what is it for and what is it likely to achieve? You know we started off as a fairly sort of informal quite loose group of interested parties wanting to just share a bit of information and experiences. But we've moved on to something that's a little bit more ambitious. We want to make sure that we are in a position to share knowledge and to collect data and information about what's happening in media literacy in Europe and indeed globally. We want to keep each other informed, we want to educate ourselves together and pool resources for everyone's benefit. We also want to lay the ground for potential partnerships. I think it's really really important for networks to sort of to sort of to act as a kind of fertile ground for meeting, for collaboration and for new partnerships to emerge, because that's where campaigns, activities, projects, ground up projects can hear about each other, can pool their resources and can potentially, for example, you know, form consortia to apply for funding and things like that because, you know, one of the things we've seen is that a lot of materials which are developed are just not known about and which are just equally applicable and equally usable in other countries. And we really, really think there's a lot to be leveraged in that space. We wanted to create a space for those sorts of opportunities to emerge. And then finally, I think one of the most important aspects of our network is to give the idea of networks and multi-stakeholder collaboration a voice, that concept of what common responsibility actually looks like, because there isn't anyone talking about that, or at least talking on behalf of that idea and so we really want to we really feel that we have you know a lot to contribute in this area and and we really want to also engage in discussions with other bodies and organizations and and and individuals working in this space so that we can better understand how we can all work together, how we can support each other and who is best placed to do what actually in this space. We want to be able to talk about these sorts of things with the big European institutions but also to each other. So we will actually be producing a sort of detailed and quite comprehensive overview of media literacy networks by the end of this year. That's going to be our main output this year. And we think that might make quite a big contribution to the discussions going on with the European Commission about the creation of a toolbox, a toolkit for how media literacy should be done in relation to the Audiovisual Media Services Directive. And that's all kind of going to be our big output this year. But before I end, I just wanted to give you a very quick overview of the document that we published at the very start of this year, which was the culmination of last year's work and that's called the reflections on media and information literacy for video sharing platforms under the audio visual media services directive with which unbelievably uninspiring title is intended to address as I'm sure many of you will be aware, the Audiovisual Media Services Directive was reviewed by the European Commission over the last few years and a new directive is now in place which places new responsibilities for user safety and a number of other areas on a new category of of actors within the media space called video sharing platforms that means the likes of youtube and indeed other potentially social media services will be caught within that definition they are required as i say to to take measures to protect users and one of those measures is the provision of, the promotion of, and the provision of tools and measures to help develop media and information literacy skills. So we took some time as regulators last year to think about what that might, what video sharing platforms should think about themselves, what they should aim to do, and how other actors might be relevant to the delivery of that particular policy objective. So we published some observations on this topic, as I say, reflecting on the fact that the directive actually specifically recognises the importance of cooperation and multi-stakeholder cooperation um in its in its revised version um we looked at what VSP's video sharing platforms that is are currently doing in relation to media literacy um we found that they were inconsistent that they lacked any kind of uh coordinated or strategic policy approaches to what they were doing in media literacy. It was ultimately basically a question of ad hoc, sometimes very, you know, very successful and very, very effective, but still ad hoc projects. Allocation of resources was extremely inconsistent across different countries and different languages, of course. There was very little emphasis on impact assessment and evaluation of the tools and measures that they had in place. There was some engagement with broader networks, but again, it was inconsistent and it wasn't also, frankly, supported at the government or national level either. We noted that there was a growing role and activity by multi-stakeholder networks and that there was a growing focus on evaluation as well that there was there were a lot of people sort of saying you know look there's no point doing stuff unless you know unless you from the beginning ask, you know, set out how you will measure the impact of what you're doing and how you will assess that impact. And so we came up with kind of three areas that everyone should focus on actually in trying to have the best outcomes for citizens in this in this space. One was around the benefits of a systematic approach so we wanted to encourage platforms and indeed frankly member states, national governments to develop more coherent and consistent policies in this area. More clarity about what was intended to be achieved with media literacy projects. And ultimately, you know, the idea of at least to plant the seed of the idea of working towards coordinated media literacy policies. We also, of course, unsurprisingly, talked about the possible benefits and positive aspects that regulatory oversight could bring. Because, you know, we felt that actually having someone to test some of your work against having someone who was focused on things like evaluation and assessment might actually be helpful in a lot of these developing a lot of these a lot of this work and of course to coordinate activity as I said to avoid duplication for example but one of the key things that we stressed was the role of multi-stakeholder networks we thought that it's really important I'm going to quote here from our document, to consider what responsibilities lie most appropriately with platforms and where support and partnerships are available and desirable. And we noted in our analysis that platforms and online platforms will naturally have more skills and expertise in developing online tools but these tools are likely to be most effective when applied in combination with offline initiatives like education like media creation opportunities not necessarily just online and coordination between those different actors doing what it is that they do best uh is something that can be really effectively done through media literacy networks um so so those are the sort of those are that's the starting point i think for for much of our work um in the coming years and what we want to try to achieve is is the kind of the the the ground as I say, that fertile ground for all of that to happen. We are very, very happy to be able to say that, you know, we've opened up our membership to a broader range of organisations, including media. We want to build up a community that can create that fertile ground. And we take that concept of community very, very seriously, because we think that that's the best way that the right responsibilities can be matched to the right actors in this space. So that is what I wanted to share with you. Apologies for my poor PowerPoint abilities. I hope that was of interest. Very happy to answer any questions or discuss any of these ideas further. Thank you. Thank you very much, Maria. It was great hearing your insights of the current policy of the Ofcom and about your projects and your intentions. Perfect. So the floor is open for all of us. Questions, please. Now I think it's better with my connection, yes. I should just say, as I said, I'm very happy to share my slides and some summaries of some of what I said was on there as well as a link to that paper that I was talking about. Perfect. Helmut, please start. Okay, I want to break the silence. Thank you, Maria, for this overview. It's really not so easy if you are not familiar with this environment to have an idea what's going on. And even there are more actors I think you did not mention because EPRA is the Council of Europe based. And there is this ERGA which is covering the European Union countries, I think. I don't know what's now for Ofcom, you're out there or not. I sort of include, I think I sort of include ERGA in the European Commission category of actors, because they're basically doing the work that the European Commission has asked them to do this year. Well, what would be my question is another level because you mentioned several times the multi-stakeholder approach. This is an approach which is mentioned also often by the Council of Europe. This is an approach which is mentioned also often to the Council of Europe. But still, the idea that stakeholders, as let's say simple citizens, even organized citizens, they are often not in the position to take a part in this discussion because it's really a question of resources. And it's really hard to get there. And so it's for me a bit the question, if we now speak here about, with colleagues from the field of education, when you bring this down to learners and to make a feeling of how can citizens really intervene in these discussions is what's your idea about is is it possible to to explain is with some cases or with yeah so i mean i i sort of i think i slightly want to challenge your uh your comment about the fact that you need resources in order to participate in the discussions um i don't think you necessarily need resources to participate in the discussions obviously you need to take some time to find out about where the discussions are going on but it's um it you know that that in itself is if you are interested in this topic and you want to and you want to participate i don't that that in itself is if you are interested in this topic and you want to and you want to participate i don't think that in itself is particularly resource intensive what is resource intensive is is is doing something is developing projects you know having an idea and then and then um bringing that idea to to some kind of fruition that that absolutely requires resources. But I think the idea, I suppose, is that if you can find your way into this network, you are then in a position to meet those who do have the resources. And so you can find a partner for the project that you want to develop. develop. That's the idea, you know, obviously. There are some examples of this having happened, but I should say probably most predominantly it will be through other organising groups. So for example, you know, the Irish Mediaish media literacy network uh has incredibly active um members from the community media uh uh world um and uh the libraries world and the um adult education world and these are all obviously uh actors who are represented within the network by their trade associations, by their groups, by their so on and so forth. So in a way, I guess it's the responsibility of those groups to ensure thatup of of um the the kind of ground up um voices to come through to to uh to the network itself but one thing i would say is that um it's kind of let's take the counterfactual if you like um if you don't have a network, then you definitely can't have any opportunities for those kind of ground up views to make themselves heard. At least it opens up the chance, the opportunity, the possibility. How, you know, how then it operates in practice will depend on individuals. But I would say it's a necessary prerequisite. It's hard to imagine it being done some other way. Thank you, Maria. Helmut, you have still your hand in the air, but it's answered. Other questions? Yeah, from Florian. The general question. What is the role of what you think of the media regulators concerning promoting media literacy from your point of view? So it's one question which will also be raised up tomorrow morning, but I think it's already good to know your stance on it right now. Sure. So it sort of depends on your interpretation of what promotion of media literacy entails. So, for example, in the case of Ofcom, we have had a duty to promote media literacy since Ofcom was set up in the early 2000s. And we have discharged or met that duty by conducting research, by conducting research and by having a big, big programme of disseminating that research. So, so we have until the last couple of years, basically, you know, put a lot of funding and a lot of resources into tracking people's attitudes and use of media, their skills and competencies in relation to media use, and other aspects related to media literacy. And we have published many, many reports covering all of these issues and all of these topics. Some of them are longitudinal studies, some are ad hoc, and some relate to concerns and growing worries about online content. Some are much more about trying to understand how children use and engage with media and learning lessons from that. So that was the approach that Ofcom took. A couple of years ago we also decided to take a slightly different direction. We also set up a network. we have a panel of experts advising us in our in our work now as well um and so we wanted to put more emphasis on that kind of um coordination uh sharing of information uh and so on i think we've done that we've started uh but we haven't sort of you know when it was developed for example there's some some other uh media regulators who who are running networks you know really really successfully and and who have a lot of examples of of the kind of things that um you know helmet for example, there's some other media regulators who are running networks really, really successfully and who have a lot of examples of the kind of things that Helmut was asking about. Other regulators have done a lot in terms of actually collaborating with the educational authorities, developing educational materials. One of our members from Catalonia in Spain has produced a whole programme of educational materials, for example, again working with pedagogical experts and so on. Other regulators have launched campaigns. Norwegian regulator, for example, has been really, really active in that area, has cooperated with industry to run both research and information campaigns on Facebook, for example. So there's a really broad range of kind of approaches and expertise and so on. And I do think that's another, you know, I mean, that's the one thing I really want to stress is that when it comes to this field, what we have tended to see from our research, and I mean that from the perspective of Ofcom, but also from EPRA, is that there are some, there are, everyone has an expertise, you know, everyone does something really, really well, and all of it can contribute to media literacy outcomes. So that's true of, you know, researchers, that's true of media, who can, you know, offer opportunities to actually use and make media really really important in critical media literacy education and then that's true of like the more comms experts who are able to design and and target campaigns information campaigns to you know to influence behavior and so on and so forth so so there's just there's just kind of it's about playing to your strengths I think is how I would put it and it's important for and and different regular and actually you know because different media regulators have different focuses different different strengths themselves so so they can you know really do a large a variety of different things but perhaps the more general point is one of interaction between regulatory activity, more traditional regulatory activity and media literacy. You know, why is it the responsibility of media regulators to get involved in this space? What is it that we have to, you know, to contribute and to how does it fit with the rest of our work? how does it fit with the rest of our work? And I think it fits with the rest of our work really, really, you know, very compactly and very neatly because the policy goals are often around ensuring the sustainability of public service media, for example, which arguably is hard to do without complementary kind of understanding of what the public service media compact is for. It is our responsibility to ensure that viewers are protected from inappropriate content, children are protected and so on. That's almost impossible to do without some elements of information remedies and media literacy education. almost impossible to do without some elements of information remedies and media literacy education. So there's a real complementarity between regulatory goals and media literacy goals. So certainly I think it's understandable why regulators are increasingly involved in this area. Also from me, thank you. I think also from Florian. Thank you, Maria. Other questions? There's some time left. So before our question is typed, then I take my chance and I have a small question to you, Maria. You were talking impressively about your efforts, about your plans. I want to put the attention on one thing, which is very important, I would say the evaluation. How do you evaluate your efforts and what kind of success criteria you put on? It's also a kind of normative thing and what kind of pressures do you, are you confrontative? Are you being evaluated concerning your efforts? So like in science we have peer review and we can do what we want so it's always kind of co-peer review so what would you say in your field what are success criteria evaluation or it's it's not only it's not like you're probably sketched it's how we are have a lot of efforts and we are creating new projects it's also a kind of competition probably you can give us an insight on it so do you mean uh us as as uh as a new body as a as a kind of yes yeah yeah um well i think we i think uh i'd be i would say that our uh goal is to in the very first instance is to create a a community. And so I think, you know, we can be rightly judged on the success or failure of that project. I also think that we are really, you know, we do have these kind of these underlying purposes of information sharing, best practice sharing. And that's kind of where EPRA comes from in the first place so I think you know it's going to have to be around um how successful our membership feels that we've been in in in being able to um produce you know be able to offer them that the that kind of information and so on and so forth. But I also think, you know, we are, we're doing two things. One is actually, so one of our sessions at roundtables last year was exactly on this question was how do you evaluate the success of networks? And I think one of the purposes of sort of one of the practical uses for our membership of this new network will be about working together to try to come up with an answer to that question. know the focus is now on evaluation but that doesn't mean anyone has actually really you know um been gone that far in terms of um producing an answer so so we are working on it that is something that we will and i think so so on that basis i do think we will uh get to the stage where we can evaluate the success of our network based on whether or not we have helped other networks to be able to to evaluate their own success if you see what i mean um so we're kind of cooperating in that in that sphere the other thing of course is that you know evaluation is really important for the projects themselves and so a lot of us um are working within our domestic networks at the national level to try to help the members of those networks evaluate themselves so in Ofcom for example that's one of the most most uh the biggest areas of focus for us is to develop an evaluation framework and a toolkit for that and we're doing that now we're working with academics and we are uh um developing a website where where members of our network can can go and get the resources and the tools they need in order to be able to start to evaluate their projects from the start so i'm you know i'm not an expert in evaluation i'm not a scientist and nor an academic um so you know i i understand that it's a complex process but you know we're sort of you know uh trying to give them but indeed you know, I understand that it's a complex process, but, you know, we're sort of, you know, trying to give them, but indeed, you know, many of the people running media literacy projects also are not researchers or academics. So we're trying to kind of give them the tools that they need to be able to, you know, set their outcomes and goals adequately, come up with criteria against which they can assess themselves, potentially even look for independent bodies to analyse and assess their success and so on and so forth. But the one thing I would just say finally though is there is sometimes a little bit of a tendency to let the evaluation kind of run the or overcome the goal of the project. I mean sometimes you know it's worth trying things experimentally even if you're not absolutely certain you know that you will be successful. And it's always a balance between the amount of resource you put into it and so on and so forth. And to some extent, I do actually think that the Emil project is a bit of an experiment. And, you know, I'm sort of hoping that we can lay the groundwork for something magical to happen. And then that will be the, that will be the measure of our success. Thank you, Maria. So there's one question from Helmut. Do you want to say it on your own, Helmut, or should I just read it? I can just ask also. Well, Maria, we were hesitating also bringing into the program of this event also the issue of media literacy mapping, of national mappings. So we did not finally but of course it's an issue still in the background so i would just like to ask you if if you have experiences and expectations with middle mappings because it was an issue with your with your roundtables also and if this can be helpful steps when starting a national meal network yeah i mean frankly if you want my personal view i i kind of don't think you can start any of these projects without a mapping exercise and many of our members have uh you know taken that route and and find it incredibly important uh the swed council, for example, conducted a really, really thorough exercise to map mill activity in Sweden before even beginning to launch its network. I think it's really, really critically important. It is difficult, and it can be quite resource intensive. But it allows you to identify the actors that are relevant in the field. It allows you to identify the actors that are relevant in the field, it allows you to identify gaps of communities and groups and so on who are underserved, you know to identify problems and so on and so forth. So I kind of think it's pretty important to do. In the UK the government In the UK, the government has decided to do that exercise. And I think it's done variously by different organizations and different parties at the various national level. European-wide mapping would be incredibly helpful, actually. But I'm not sure how much priority there is for that. So, you know, there are actually some really good examples of countries who've done it and regulators who have done it and EPRA members who have done it. So that's, again, you know, that's kind of the, hopefully that will be one of the benefits of your involvement in the um in the in the Emil network uh is that that precisely you know we we can put you in touch with those who have done that um who from from whose experiences you can learn it's not something that Ofcom has done um but but I I have you know it's definitely something that many of our members have found to be really, really incredibly useful. And apart from anything else, it allows you to start to build the relationships, you know, for the for the basis of any partnerships and so on and so forth. And the other thing it does is it really starkly brings into focus just how much duplication there is you know just how many people are doing the same thing now that's not necessarily a problem because someone might be you know teaching this particular set of media literacy skills and competencies to this particular group and some other one some other people may be doing the same thing but to a different group and that's fine uh but you know they might be usefully sharing their resources they might be you know combining the results of their work to have a better and more evidence-based approach to what works and mapping exercises can really bring a lot of that to the surface. can really bring a lot of that to the surface. So I would definitely recommend it as a key first step. Thank you. Sorry, if I just come back again. Regarding the European level of mapping perspective, there might be a logic to add or to strengthen the aspect of media literacy research with the media pluralism monitor, because there is already the field of media literacy, but it is very small and it's not very I think I don't know how many indicators but that's something maybe could be uh to go in the direction yeah I mean there's there's a couple of things actually so the European Audiovisual Observatory conducted a sort of a mapping exercise I mean look I'm actually no that's that's sorry that was unnecessarily dismissive. It was a very effective mapping exercise, it's just that it was quite a long time ago. It was around sort of 2015, maybe 2016, you know it. So, and it's very good. So there is some, you know, kind of examples of that, but even they themselves were sort of of the view that it should be there should be resources to do it again to do it differently to expand it and so on. Now the European Commission has launched the European Digital Media Observatory or EDMO as it's known and I think there is some possibly some some likelihood that that new observatory may conduct some mapping but their focus is very much on disinformation so it will be if they do do anything in this area it will be disinformation focused however there is also in the new audio visual media services directive an obligation on member states to report on media literacy activity in their countries now depending on how the european commission wants to activity in their countries. Now, depending on how the European Commission wants to use that information when it is reported or how stringently it wants to apply that requirement, that could be the basis of a really, really thorough mapping of media literacy activity across the EU. Sadly, not including any more of the UK, but certainly, you know, 27 countries, which would, you know, potentially give a really valuable and rich database. Thank you very much, Maria. It was a great pleasure. And I think your presentation and discussion fit very well. and discussion fit very well. And afternoon is the final part. Thank you very much. And to you of the regulators, I think it's very important, probably the most important besides the audience. Thank you very much, Maria. Thank you for having me. It was great to talk to you all. We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.