Home > Facts Matter: A Guide to Building Critical Media Literacy in Today’s World

Facts Matter: A Guide to Building Critical Media Literacy in Today’s World

We are bombarded everyday by information, a lot of which is false or misleading – this is often called an ‘infodemic’.

We require skills to work out if what we are reading or hearing is true or false. This means taking the time to:

  • find reliable and accurate information when reading the news (local, national
    and global);
  • question the role of information, including the marketing of ideas in lots of
    formats; and
  • explore answers to the question ‘what can I do?

Facts Matter: A Guide to Building Critical Media Literacy in Today’s World is an introductory guide for adult literacy and adult education practitioners who wish to build their students’ knowledge, understanding, skills and confidence in critical thinking, media and digital literacy.

The guide also supports tutors to engage with what it means to live in an increasingly unequal world and to invite students to question and challenge this.

Facts Matter includes:

  • 10 lessons, 30 activities, 19 handouts and 14 worksheets
  • 6 reasons why becoming media savvy and reading the world are essential today
  • activities exploring how news is made, breaking down tactics and methods used by trolls against women online and activities to ‘de-escalate hate’
  • materials piloted and developed with literacy tutors across Ireland.

Access Facts Matter

Produced by the National Adult Literacy Agency and 80:20 Educating and Acting for a Better World.

Published: September 28, 2021

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Supported by

80:20 is part-funded by Irish Aid at the Department of Foreign Affairs. Irish Aid is the Government’s overseas development programme which supports partners working in some of the world’s poorest countries. Irish Aid also supports global citizenship and development education in Ireland to encourage learning and public engagement with global issues.

The views expressed in Facts Matter are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Irish Aid.