Policy paper

Year 3 Online Media Literacy Action Plan (2023/24)

Published 23 October 2023

This was published under the 2022 to 2024 Sunak Conservative government

The Year 3 Action Plan will continue to deliver the objectives of the Online Media Literacy Strategy, published in 2021, with a further £2 million of funding. Over the last year, the government has delivered an ambitious media literacy programme which included establishing the Media Literacy Taskforce; commissioning research to understand key sectoral challenges; and establishing 2 grant schemes to fund projects reaching diverse audiences nationwide. In the current year, we intend to build on these successes with an expanded work programme.

Media literacy grant schemes

As detailed above, through the two media literacy grant schemes established last year, the Media Literacy Taskforce Fund and the Media Literacy Programme Fund, we have provided almost £2 million in funding to a range of initiatives. These aim to improve the media literacy skills of citizens who may be:

• disengaged from or lacking access access to media literacy support; and
• disproportionately vulnerable to harm online

As part of the Year 3 Action Plan, we are funding 13 organisations to deliver projects through our grant schemes. These projects seek to empower internet users of all ages with a broad range of media literacy skills, including demonstrating resilience to harmful disinformation, and responding effectively to hate and abuse online. The projects will be robustly evaluated, including by independent experts, and their findings shared across the sector upon completion.

We will monitor the projects closely to identify where there is a clear rationale for scaling them, and consider where they can be adapted to address emerging challenges facing the digital world. Projects being delivered under the Taskforce Fund will continue to benefit from the expert advice of the Media Literacy Taskforce.

Adult engagement research project

Previously commissioned research has highlighted widespread disengagement with media literacy initiatives. These studies suggested that this could be countered by ensuring these initiatives relate more clearly to adults’ day-to-day online activities, and meet these users where they are online. 

It is important for the future development of purposeful and useful media literacy resources that we deepen our understanding of how to support adult users’ engagement with initiatives. Therefore, we will be commissioning a research project that establishes:

(a) the behaviours shown and decisions taken by adults during points at which they may need media literacy support online
(b) the type of media literacy resources that are most likely to engage adults
(c) where media literacy resources can be hosted online in order to increase engagement with them

We will share the findings of this research with sector stakeholders, enabling them to maximise the reach and impact of their initiatives moving forward.

Dissemination of media literacy research

Last year, we commissioned 2 research projects:

• Media Literacy uptake amongst ‘hard to reach’ citizens by the Behavioural Insights Team
• Cross-sectoral challenges to media literacy by the London School of Economics and Political Science

These generated a raft of findings that we are using to improve the implementation of our Strategy, and the ongoing work of the sector. We will work closely with our Media Literacy Taskforce to understand the most effective means for promoting these learnings both to organisations currently delivering media literacy activities, and those not participating in the sector at present, but who could play a critical role in future.