Chaire Francqui 2020-2021 – Closing session: Conference by Professor Leo Van Audenhove

On 4 May 2021, the department of Political, Social and Communication Sciences of the Université de Namur organises the closing session of the Francqui Chair 2020-2021 (via Teams). Professor Leo Van Audenhove has been invited to give a lecture on the following theme “Media Literacy for a Datafied Society. Opportunities, limits and ways forward”.

Media literacy is by many governments seen as a possible solution to handle the growing problems caused by the digital age. The individual user should be assisted to acquire the necessary skills and competences to function more autonomously in the digitalized society. This mission becomes more and more daunting as digitization and datafication processes penetrate all aspects of our social, economic and political lives.

This raises several questions. How do we integrate digitalization and datafication issues into the agenda of media literacy? How do we move media literacy from small scale initiatives into a much more systemic approach? How do we reach the vast amounts of adult users outside of formal education? But above all, what are the limits of media literacy?

All too often media literacy covers up the reluctance of governments to regulate digitalization and datafication processes.