“To make every French person aware of media education”

You are co-managing the mission for “critical media education”, launched in mid-December by the Assembly’s Cultural Affairs Committee. What is the ambition?

Violette Spillebout, February 25, 2020. / Photo: François Lo Presti/AFP

Violette Spillebout: We hope that every French young person, adult or senior can have, in the next five years, an awareness of media education. Today, a high school student from a bourgeois neighborhood can have media education modules four times in his school career, when a young person in a rural environment has none. Seniors do not have access. And parents are helpless. With this mission, we want to raise awareness of infox, critical image education, decryption of information…

You are coming to the end of a series of round tables with media education stakeholders. What do you remember?

V. S. : There is a real sense of urgency in the face of the power of digital, and a desire for all actors to act, whether they are cultural, institutional, associative or professional such as journalists… This nourishes the sense of their commitment, also because they are parents and see the effects of the lack of critical thinking on social networks. The expertise exists. A level of competence has been developed in ten years, in particular with the action of the Education and Information Media Liaison Center (Clemi) at the Ministry of National Education.

What place for journalists?

V. S. : If media literacy is to become an important component of youth and adult education, it must be recognized in terms of status, training, funding and remuneration for journalists. However, today, some do media education on their working time, others on a voluntary basis in associations, others are paid during calls for projects from the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs (Drac ). One could imagine that journalists could pass a pedagogical module of media education which entitles them to receive a fixed hourly amount.

The culture pass also allows the media to be paid for media education workshops…

V. S. : Yes, but the non-payment of the bus, in particular to go to an editorial office, constitutes a brake. A reflection on a media pass, on the same principle as the culture pass, was mentioned during the hearings. It would take this funding into account. Territorial inequality is the other major subject. This interests some Directorate of Cultural Affairs (Drac), like that of the North, others do not. It is the same for the rectors of academies. We need to have more harmonious public policies, with directives that are better distributed across the territory, dedicated resources, and coordination allowing better knowledge of the actors. There is often no link between a municipal library and an association of journalists who could intervene.

Reporters Without Borders suggests making the fight against disinformation through media literacy the great national cause of 2024. Do you support this idea?

V. S. : We are going to take up this idea of ​​a great national and regional cause. Media education concerns the ministries of national education and culture, but also digital, family, public health, citizenship, secularism. There is an urgent need to make media education a transversal and dedicated policy. Is it interdepartmental? Do we need a High Commission, a Secretary of State? Does this fall under the mission of the sub-prefect for equal opportunities? I do not know.

Your co-rapporteur is a member of the National Rally. Did this influence the course of the mission?

V. S. : Only the National Union of Journalists did not respond to our invitation. This posed no problem in organizing our January trips to his constituency and mine. He participates fully, and is a force of proposals.

When will you report your findings?

V. S. : We will present our report, which will include ten recommendations, to the Culture and Education Committee of the National Assembly at the end of March on the occasion of the Week of the press at school, then to the foundations of journalism in Tours.

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