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Media Literacy Index
webRelevant to AI safety discussions around information integrity and societal resilience to AI-enabled disinformation; Finland's media literacy model offers policy insights for mitigating harms from deepfakes and synthetic media.
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Importance: 30/100news articleanalysis
Summary
This resource examines Finland's approach to combating disinformation through media literacy education, highlighting how the country's emphasis on critical thinking and information evaluation skills has made its population more resilient to misinformation campaigns. It discusses the Media Literacy Index and Finland's consistently high rankings as a model for other nations.
Key Points
- •Finland consistently ranks at the top of the Media Literacy Index due to strong public education in critical thinking and source evaluation.
- •Media literacy is integrated into Finnish school curricula from an early age, building population-wide resistance to disinformation.
- •The approach emphasizes teaching citizens to identify manipulation tactics, including deepfakes and coordinated influence operations.
- •Trust in public institutions and media is reinforced through transparency and civic education, reducing susceptibility to false narratives.
- •Finland's model is seen as exportable, offering lessons for other democracies facing disinformation threats.
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# Educated decisions: Finnish media literacy deters disinformation
Finland has a long history of promoting media literacy as a critical tool for a stable democracy and a healthy society.
As part of the curriculum, teachers help students learn how to think critically by looking at media from different viewpoints and using media in their assignments.
Photo: Finnish National Audiovisual Institute/KAVI
We learn about the world through a variety of media, such as for-profit news websites, state-funded TV channels and, yes, even internet memes. For decades, the people of Finland have believed that properly understanding how the media world works is crucial for a healthy society.
What if someone said to you, “Cartoon memes influence my voting decisions”? It would sound silly, but there could also be an element of truth to it. We shouldn’t consider a meme a reliable source of information, but memes can affect people’s beliefs and behaviour.
“I would define media literacy as the set of skills you need to analyse, communicate with, collaborate in, and create media,” says Leo Pekkala, deputy director of the [Finnish National Audiovisual Institute](https://kavi.fi/en/), a government agency under the Ministry of Education and Culture. The institute’s functions include promoting and developing media education.
From daycare on up, media education in Finland is present throughout the education curriculum, but it doesn’t stop when school ends. Media Literacy Week, which Finland celebrates every year in February, focused on reaching adults in 2022. Lifelong learning is vital because media continues to evolve.
“People need to understand media critically – who creates it and why,” Pekkala says. “In the 1950s, the academic focus was on mass media like television and newspapers. By the 1980s, audiovisual elements were added to media education. Now a lot of attention is on digital media.”
### **Media education involves everyone**
Media education in Finland reaches out to everyone, not just schoolkids. Lifelong learning is vital because media platforms and media consumption continue to evolve.Photo: Emmi Korhonen/Lehtikuva
Media education in Finland takes an approach that includes the whole of society. Many different civic organisations take part in developing and enacting learning programmes, including schools, libraries, government departments, universities and NGOs. For example, more than 50 groups participated in a recent campaign called Safer Internet Day.
“It is important to have many stakeholders involved because there is no single solution,” says Christa Prussk
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