Check News for More Media Literacy

An increasing number of  young people are disconnecting from traditional news and information media. TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and Pinterest are being increasingly frequently used, and these platforms’ traffic can be used to determine young adults’ media consumption. One consequence of this is that information and news on topics from the realms of politics, society, business and culture are increasingly taking a back seat, while entertainment is gaining in importance.

With the CHECK NEWS project, the fög, together with IQES online- a leading digital working and learning platform for schools and teaching in Switzerland - wants to realise an attractive and up-to-date teaching tool for the school and education sector to promote content-related media literacy. Both young people and  teachers should be motivated to deal with the topic of media and their own media consumption. Reading skills and awareness of good-quality and professionally produced information offerings need to be strengthened. In this way, the project partners want to ensure that young people develop greater exposure to socio-political information to foster their willingness and opportunity to engage in civic participation.

The project is supported by the Mercator Foundation Switzerland and the Gottfried and Ursula Schäppi-Jecklin Foundation, the Vontobel Foundation, the Beisheim Foundation and the Swiss National Fonds.

For further information, see News from 5 October 2021 (in German only).