Mediawijs.be

EMELS as a project

EMELS is the abbreviation of European Media Literacy Standard for Youth Workers and all who work with children and youngsters. It was established in a European Strategic Cooperation project with seven organisations, among which Mediawijs, in the Erasmus+ framework from January 2017 until June 2018. Together we looked for an answer to the question: 'how can youth workers start with media literacy?'

Because media are such a big part of the life of young people, their educators often - and wrongly - think that young people know how to handle these in every instance. We've noticed, however, that young people lack some crucial, critical skills to grab the opportunities of digital media to tthe fullest, while navigating the possible risks. We aim for happy young citizens, who feel safe and secure and can experiment and develop, who can act autonomously and can connect with others and participate to social, economical and cultural life. That facilitates them to tranform the society they live in.

We've noticed that there is a need in youth work for a common framework that stipulates what it means to be medialiterate in a increasingly digital world. That's why together with several partners we developed EMELS, a European Media Literacy Standard for Youth Workers. This European standard is a guide to create and improve media literacy projects, tools and training to enhance the competences of young people.  It can be used in different contexts: youthled organisations, organisations for young people and informal groups of youth services and government instances.

EMELS was co-financed by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission  as a Strategic partnership of:

• Fudacja Nowoczesna Polska from Poland,
• JFF from Germany,
• Centro Zaffiria from Italy,
• Karpos from Greece,
• Ariel Trust from the United Kingdom,
• Mediawijs (imec vzw) from Belgium and
• Evens Foundation from Belgium.

The EMELS Standard

The EMELS Standard describes media literacy as a proces that helps young people use and understand digital media. In the standard media literacy is divided in five domains of digital competences:

• information and data,
• media creation and communication,
• resistance and empowerment,
• understanding the media use of children and young people
• creating training and personal developmen.

These five domains are divided in 16 competences, followed by practical examples on knowledge, skills and attitudes. The competences were enriched by good practices and training materials.

What can the EMELS Standard mean for you as a youth worker?

The standard offers a guide for media literacy initiatives in youth work, aiming to enhance the digital competences of young people in general. This framework wants to make it possible for more young people to participate intensely in our digital society.

The standard can be used by youth workers to:

• make a self reflection on their own digital skills,
• evaluate the digital competences of others,
• compose learning outcomes and identify training possibilities,
• organise and plan (digital) activities.

In what contexts can I use the Standard?

You can use the standard in every context you are usd to working in! What do we mean? Of course more formal educational activities, like a digital media workshop in a library, are especially suited to use the standard for, but EMELs is not limited to the formal settings. Media are everywhere, just like youth work. A small creative photogrphy challenge during a city walk, knowing when you can tag young people in photographs of your activities, or even just talking about young people's media use, they all belong in working with the standard! You can look at the standard as a menu, in which you can adjust your choice to your everyday experiences as a youth worker.

The EMELS project was co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission.
The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the author and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Commission.