Announcement of the Arab League's Adoption of a Media Education Strategy

Last Wednesday, October 16, the Arab League began sessions for the meeting dedicated to developing the Arab strategy for integrating media and information literacy competencies into general education and Arab universities. Unfortunately, this meeting was marked by the absence of representatives from the ministries of education and higher education across all Arab countries, the absence of the Arab organization responsible for establishing educational strategies in the Arab world—the Arab Organization for Education, Culture and Science (ALECSO)—as well as the absence of representatives from the supreme councils for educational planning and key media education experts in the Arab world.

This exclusion of experts and institutions involved in general and higher education suggests that the purpose of this strategy might be to drain media education of its critical essence, transforming it from a tool for liberation and awareness-building into a means of control and dominance, thereby reproducing hegemony and monopolizing symbolic power to steer media discourse. If we accept this hypothesis, we are faced with another concerning assumption: that those in charge of this strategy project do not grasp the essence of media education, its pedagogical philosophy, and the principles and concepts upon which it was founded, nor its historical evolution. This leads to a prevalent confusion in the Arab world between media education and overlapping terms within both the educational and media fields.

The author of this text has conducted a scientific study that traced this issue within the Arab media and academic spheres, analyzing the existing knowledge fog and theoretical confusion in distinguishing between media education and educational media, between instructional media and teaching media, and between education about media and education through media. The study clarified that media education is not merely an upgraded version of educational media, nor a subdivision of it, nor a substitute. Instead, it is a new pedagogy necessitated by media developments; it is an education that serves to protect, liberate, and empower: an education that shields against harmful influences of the media and digital environment, liberates consciousness by fostering critical thinking and analytical skills, and empowers learners to achieve self-sufficiency and lifelong learning through continuous engagement with the ever-flowing information sources. It also prepares learners for social and political life in democratic societies that uphold values of coexistence and human rights. The study emphasized that media education is not simply media training; it is, fundamentally, a social educational methodology aimed at developing critical thinking and equipping students with self-directed learning and communication skills to express themselves, thereby preparing them to face contemporary challenges and engage actively in an era of evolving media.

If we analyze the recent tendency of the Arab League to incorporate media and information literacy into the agenda of the Arab Ministers of Information, it becomes necessary to rule out conspiracy theories or the intention to deplete media education of its critical core. We may find justifications for this Arab confusion in the entrapment of the project's stakeholders in the mix-up between the concepts of media education and educational media. Educational media, as specialized media, can fall under the jurisdiction of the Council of Arab Ministers of Information, and we can accept the idea of an information team affiliated with this council crafting a strategy for educational media, provided that it does not aim to integrate educational media into schools or universities. In contrast, media education is an educational approach dedicated to developing critical thinking, enhancing self-directed learning, social participation, and digital citizenship in the modern media and digital environment. This falls squarely within the purview of ministries of education and higher education and the supreme councils for educational planning.

Evidence of this confusion can be found in the press release circulated by the Arab League to Arab news agencies, which alternately referred to integrating media education into curricula while mentioning integrating educational media, showcasing the blurred lines in understanding these two distinct domains. Furthermore, some older news articles published on the Arab League's website referred to the strategy for media education while using the term "educational media" in parentheses after "media education," which confirms that the writer of the news perceived media education as a new term for educational media.

It is noteworthy that the European Council of Ministers of Education began developing a European strategy for media education in 1989, emphasizing that media education should fulfill a democratic and liberating role, encouraging learners to actively participate as citizens in democratic societies, shaping a democratic political consciousness among youth. Moreover, it aims to equip learners with the ability to achieve autonomy and demonstrate critical thinking in confronting the underlying media messages of various media texts.

It is regrettable that the Arab League, after a delay of thirty-five years, has only recently begun discussing media education, yet it appointed the wolf to devise a strategy for protecting the sheep. The Council of Arab Ministers of Information is not only unqualified to formulate educational strategies for education ministries but may also be a target of media education, as media education is a citizen's right aimed at protecting them from media influences. Media education seeks to cultivate critical awareness to liberate the Arab audience from the dominance of official and private media. It does not endorse the existence of free and independent media, as every media institution aims for influence, profit, or impact, and both governmental and independent media ownership leaves visible and hidden marks on media messages. However, this does not imply that media education adopts an inherently hostile approach toward media; its role is not necessarily offensive as some may assume.

Reasons Against Media Ministries Formulating Educational Strategies

In light of the above, we can summarize our objections to the media ministries overseeing the formulation of media education strategies as follows:

1-Media education is a democratic wager for preserving freedom of expression and the freedom of media itself, far removed from the oppressive methods of institutions that stifle freedoms. The very existence of Arab media ministries has proven to be an impediment to democratic transformation; their authoritative nature turns them into government monitoring institutions, restricting freedom of expression and hindering media from fulfilling its role as the fourth estate. This functional nature contradicts the essence of media education philosophy, which seeks to uphold freedom of expression alongside social responsibility through fostering audience independence and critical thinking.

2-Media education serves as an educational tool to liberate students from the influence of media and commercial advertisements, restoring the school's role through developing critical thinking faculties and analytical abilities, freeing the minds of message receivers from harmful influences. In contrast, media is constrained by conditions imposed by the nature of media ownership and its reliance on commercial advertisements or support from centers of influence for sustainability. Here, the paths of media and media education diverge. Moreover, official media cannot be exempt from this guiding nature, particularly in Arab states where media plays a directive role promoting government agendas.

3-Media education is an educational specialization designed to teach how to engage with media, rather than being an exclusively media-centric specialization. It originated as an educational method within the educational sciences, championed by educational philosophers such as Brazilian philosopher Paulo Freire, who called for a new form of education that prepares learners to interact with the modern media environment while fostering critical thinking and analytical skills. In line with Freire's theories, British educator Lynn Masterman articulated eighteen principles of media education. Similarly, Canadian educator Barry Duncan, who received the highest award from the Canadian Council of Teachers of English Language Arts, founded the first media education association in Canada in 1978, laying the educational foundations for media education. This does not imply that media education does not overlap with media sciences, especially concerning media criticism and media and society. It also does not suggest that media professionals do not need media education or that media education does not require media scholars, as will be explained later. Some may see media education as an interdisciplinary field; this is a valid perspective, with the understanding that the identity of the educational field is determined by the first word in the compound name. Thus, in Arabic, media education stands as a distinctive educational form akin to political education, civic education, or health education, which benefit from other specializations while maintaining their unique identity as an educational field.

4-Media ministries, under all laws and regulations in Arab countries, are not authorized to formulate educational strategies for educational institutions in general education and higher education. They are also not authorized to interfere in the curricula of media colleges and educational institutions, which possess their unique academic freedoms that must not be violated. If the Council of Arab Ministers of Information aims to establish policies for media awareness regarding certain media education topics, such as developing awareness about fake news or hate speech, it can affirm these roles by activating media ethics charters and adopting a strategy for media discourse, rather than a strategy for media education.

None of these arguments dismiss the potential for media training institutions to contribute expertise to media education by engaging media professionals who believe in the social and human responsibility of media, participating in proposing mechanisms for analyzing and deconstructing discourse alongside educational sociologists and some media industry specialists. However, the philosophical and strategic directives must be purely educational, aligned with the aspirations of national education strategies and the recent educational reform projects in Arab general education and higher education.

Any educational strategy must have executively empowered architects who understand the global theoretical literature regarding the topic, conduct comprehensive environmental analyses impacting the strategic subject, and have a conscious awareness of Arab educational philosophy and reference frameworks for reforming and developing Arab education, as endorsed by the Arab Organization for Education, the councils of Arab Ministers of Education, higher education ministers, and international development organizations.

In my doctoral dissertation, which won an international research funding award, I built a proposed strategy to overcome the obstacles of integrating media education into general education in Arab countries. To develop this strategy, the study examined the global theoretical literature on media education, its essentials, terminologies, foundational theories, and its historical evolution within international and Arab experiences, while providing a critical reading of the ambiguities in terminology and translation in Arabic studies and the debates surrounding definitions in English literature.

The study reviewed the reality of Arab general education and its challenges and obstacles to reform and development, addressing Arab students' exposure to media and the Arab media landscape to elucidate the justifications and reasons necessitating the integration of media education into Arab general education. It proposed a new theoretical framework to conceptualize media education in light of its interplay with seven theories: the reception theory, constructivism, social constructivism, the critical approach, the contextual theory, the political economy of media, and feminism. The study ultimately proposed a new educational model for integrating media education into Arab general education, a model grounded in theories, practical experiences, and existing educational frameworks.

In light of this, I call upon education ministries in Arab countries to take the lead in developing policies and plans for integrating media education into educational systems. They must also establish expert committees from various educational sectors to put this into practice, thereby reinforcing the significance of media education as a citizen's right to protect them from the influences of media and empower them with critical thinking skills, preparing them for social participation, and enabling them to actively engage in democratic societies.