The Literacy, Media and Citizenship Congress is one of the initiatives that GILM has been promoting for over 10 years. With editions in 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017 and 2019, Congress was stopped due to the constraints triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic. We are now back in 2023, again in the exclusively face-to-face model, which GILM believes brings more proximity between the multiple agents of education, scientific research, public policies, the media and the community in general, who develop and are interested in the area of literacy media.
The VI edition of the Literacy, Media and Citizenship Congress takes place on April 21 and 22, 2023, at the School of communication and Media Studies. “Digital Transition and Public Policies” is the theme chosen by GILM, at a time when Media Literacy takes its place as one of the key literacies to empower all citizens, without exception, in the policies that have been adopted nationally and internationally.
It is undeniable that, particularly in the context of the European Union countries, this recognition has been accelerated by the role that media literacy can play in the urgent fight against disinformation and false narratives as well as in the fight against hate speech , which expands in digital environments, phenomena that threaten the health of democracy and the full exercise of citizenship. It is therefore opportune to look at this moment as an opportunity to discuss public policies and reflect on the diversity of other media-related matters involved in the area of media literacy, in order to find solutions that offer citizens the complete package access skills, autonomy, responsibility, critical, creative and participatory spirit in their relationship with and through media.
Following a two-day model of debate and knowledge sharing, the VI Congress Literacy, Media and Citizenship is structured with several crucial moments:
- conferences of experts invited to open each day of the congress, as well as one to close the first day of works;
- four plenary sessions; on the first day, the first to challenge precisely a reflection on the new paradigms that media literacy and of the information can assume, and the second to provide a new opportunity for reflection on its role in combating misinformation and infodemics; already on the second day, the third session aims to bring together several personalities, national and international, in direct or indirect exercise of executive functions, to place them before the challenges for public policies; the fourth plenary session has the mission to discuss the opportunities and challenges of the digital transition for education and media literacy ;
- two blocks (one per day) for Papers and Posters dedicated not only to the central theme of the congress, but also to the multiple themes that the media literacy hat can encompass;
- a block of workshops starting activities on the 22nd of April.
During coffee breaks, meals and the social program, the congress also intends to provide conditions for participants to, in a more informal and relaxed way, carry out moments of sharing, through of a real networking.
