Making Sense of Media events

On Friday 7 May we hosted a virtual event to showcase our key findings from our adults’ and children’s media literacy reports which we published at the end of April. The event focused on three topics -

Adults’ and Children’s media use, Online knowledge and understanding, and Digital Exclusion. We were joined by over 140 people with a range of interests in media literacy, and we would like to thank everyone who attended for a very engaging and valuable discussion. For more information please see the linked reports below:

• Adults’ Media Use & Attitudes report
• Adults’ Media Lives report (PDF, 372.6 KB)
• Children’s Media Lives: Year 7 report (PDF, 4.0 MB)
• Children and parents: media use and attitudes report 2020/21 (PDF, 4.3 MB)

The event was organised for our MSOM Network members. If you’re not already a member, please do join us - you can find further details here: Making Sense of Media Network - Ofcom

On 30 October 2020, the Making Sense of Media team hosted a virtual event for our Making Sense of Media Network entitled “News: consumption, engagement, and misinformation”. The event marked UNESCO’s Global Media and Information Literacy week, for which this year's theme was “Resisting Disinfodemic: Media & Information Literacy for everyone & by everyone”.

In the first session Alison Preston shared key findings from our recent research on news consumption and attitudes, both more broadly and in the context of Covid-19-related misinformation. This was followed by a Q&A with attendees that was chaired by Kate Davies.

The second session was chaired by Professor Rasmus Nielsen from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, and saw a panel of speakers talk about initiatives to improve media literacy in the context of misinformation, and how these initiatives could be evaluated. The speakers included Claire Levens from Internet Matters, Katy Minshall from Twitter, Antonio Silva from the Behavioural Insights Team and Alberto Fernandes from Ofcom.

Kate Davies led the Adults’ Media Literacy research event on Friday 31 July 2020. During the session we shared highlights from our Adults’ Media Literacy tracker and Adults’ Media Lives qualitative study on the topics of Critical Understanding, Trust, and Digital Divides, alongside some more recent findings from our ongoing Covid-19 tracker and qualitative interviews.

On 10 and 12 June 2020, we hosted our first virtual Making Sense of Media Network event. The Wednesday session was attended by 35 senior individuals representing government and industry as well representatives from our own Making Sense of Media advisory panel. The session was repeated to the wider MSOM Network on 12 June, hosted by Kate Davies, which attracted over 60 attendees.

The Teens Talk Tech event included videos that Year 9 children from four UK schools recorded with their peers, with the aim of teaching us about a range of topics: what they enjoy doing online, what concerns them about participating online, what they think needs to change, and how. Their accounts gave us a fascinating glimpse into the online lives of Year 9 schoolchildren.

On Tuesday 4 February 2020, we hosted a breakfast meeting at the British Library to launch our latest Children’s Media Literacy research. We covered the findings from the latest wave of our long-running Children’s Media Literacy Tracker, the longer-term trends over the last five years, as well as showcasing our ground-breaking Children’s Media Lives video evidence. The session concluded with networking over breakfast.

Our Making Sense of Media (MSOM) event brought together experts and practitioners at the British Library to discuss and debate the latest insights and challenges in online media literacy. We showcased our latest MSOM research, including key findings relating to online harms and media literacy (see the presentation slides section below), and announced our MSOM Advisory Panel – made up of 11 industry, third sector and academic experts – who will debate and inform the direction of our media literacy work.

Presentation slides

A researcher's perspective (PDF, 134.8 KB) Amy Orben, University of Oxford.

The behavioural science of online harm and manipulation and what to do about it (PDF, 1.4 MB) Aisling Ni Chonaire, The Behavioural Insights Team.

Data collection and use (PDF, 726.3 KB) Ian Macrae, Ofcom.

Audience perspectives on misinformation and low trust. (PDF, 1.7 MB) Nic Newman, Reuters Institute for the study of journalism.

Engaging vulnerable communities (PDF, 200.2 KB) Dr Idil Osman.

We hosted our first Network Social Event on Monday 18 November 2019 at our London office. We were joined by 50 network members and the Making Sense of Media Advisory Panel. The event was a great opportunity to meet other members of the network, learn some more about Ofcom’s Making Sense of Media research and engagement programme and share experiences of working on media literacy related activities.