UNESCO IITE took part in the 11th International Media Education Summit

The 11th International Media Education Summit 2018 (MES-2018) was jointly organized by the Centre for Excellence in Media Practice of Bournemouth University of the United Kingdom with the Hong Kong Baptist University on 1–2 November 2018.

The annual event brought together a global network of media educators, policy makers, activists, scholars and researchers to share research, pedagogy and innovation on all aspects of media education, media literacy and media in education. The Summit serves as an annual ‘convergence’ of the research work and networking and it demonstrates the mission to foster collaborative work in the related fields of media education and media literacy.

This year’s edition of the Summit offered a supportive, collegiate and dynamic environment for promising media education initiatives to be shared by researchers from all over the world. The Summit serves as an occasion for hearing about participants’ methods and findings projects, publications and events in the area of media education to take all of the work forward.

Over 160 researchers in media and communication, educators, policy makers, activists and students from more than 28 countries and regions have joined this event. In addition to the keynote speeches and forum, the two-day conference included two conversations as well as 21 panels aimed at promoting media literacy and media education and presenting research projects and other outputs related to digital / media literacy, media practice education, journalism education and civic media in order to meet the digital challenges.

Keynote speeches were delivered by Ms Marielza Oliveira, Director of UNESCO Beijing Office; Ms Sarah Jones, Head of the Birmingham School of Media at Birmingham City University (United Kingdom); Prof Hyeon-Seon Jeong from Gyeongin National University of Education (South Korea); Mr Fergal Keane, Foreign correspondent with BBC News (Ireland); Prof Donna Chu, Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong (China).

Ms Tatiana Murovana, programme specialist of the UNESCO IITE Unit for Digital Pedagogy and Learning Materials, presented the Institute’s initiatives and activities concerning the development of the media and information literacy. Her speech was devoted to the rethinking of the concepts of the critical and behavioral autonomy as the ultimate goal of media and information literacy education in the context of emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, big data analytics, neural networks and internet of things.