Is it just another Big Tech tool for collecting our personal data? Will it just magnify misinformation in a volatile political climate? Will it perpetuate racist, sexist and cultural stereotypes? Will it seem “smarter” only because we will cease to research, analyze, and create ourselves? My steps into exploring what AI tools can do have been reluctant.

So, I was challenged at a recent workshop for academic publishers, where I expected a similar level of scepticism. However, multiple speakers bluntly told participants to really learn and engage with AI tools – “because AI is here to stay and will only become more pervasive.”

This next generation of the digital transformation makes being a digital avoider or passive observer impossible – and unethical for those of us who aspire to achieving communication rights for all. 

This means we all need to make sure we are critically, digitally, literate, which makes the Global Media and Information Literacy Week, happening now from 24 to 31 October, all the more critical. 

The importance of being informed advocates is highlighted by the theme of the week’s feature conference: “The new digital frontiers of information: Media and Information Literacy for public interest journalism”. In the midst of a digital communication avalanche that mixes eyewitness truth-telling and misinformed or falsified reports, the role of public interest journalism is ever more vital – and challenging.

One glimpse of this comes from a recent report from Jeremy Bowen, International Editor, for the BBC. Writing about an Israeli strike on Jabalia in northern Gaza, he describes what he sees in a video filmed by a paramedic with a smartphone minutes after the strike, the details augmented by interviews he requested of a Palestinian journalist in Gaza as he himself is not allowed in. He seems to have to explain why he is not reporting directly:  

I am forced to use conditional tenses because I am writing this in Jerusalem, not after interviewing eyewitnesses at the scene of the attack in Jabalia in Gaza. Reporters will always struggle to get to the best possible version of the truth they can find when they are stopped from getting to the place where the story happened.

Israel allowed reporters into their border communities along the border with Gaza in the days after the Hamas attacks last year. I was in Kfar Azza kibbutz when they were still recovering the bodies of dead Israelis, as soldiers checked buildings with bursts of gunfire. They wanted us to see where Hamas had killed around 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, and dragged more than 250 into captivity in Gaza.

The evidence is piling up that Israel has done things in Gaza that it does not want journalists to see, which is why they will not let us cross into the territory, except on rare and highly controlled visits with the army. I have been in only once, in the first month of the war, when Israeli firepower had already turned the areas of northern Gaza that I saw into a wasteland.

As a result, journalists rely on videos and statements that emerge from Palestinians inside Gaza, including some very brave journalists, and from international diplomats, medics and aid workers who are allowed into Gaza, and witnesses like Nevine with smartphones.

The evolving generations of digital communication make us sceptical not only of their quality but of what is true. Our antidote is not avoidance, but an ever more critical, literate society with more robust public interest journalism that sifts fact from fiction and uncovers what authorities may want to hide.

This is why WACC has developed engaging, online courses that not only aim to demystify digital developments but to give us tools and regional perspectives that will equip us to assess the implications – positive and negative – of new technologies.

The webinar series “AI, You and Your Organization” helps us understand and work ethically with generative AI, while the self-directed online “Just Digital” course explains the key issues involved in our digital lives, and how to take control in our own use – from protecting personal data to recognizing fake news and preserving freedom of expression. A further series of Just Digital is also being developed to equip us as more informed advocates of rights online. 

Some scepticism about out digital transformation is healthy. But critical media and information literacy is even more vital. Each of us, and our organizations, must commit to continuing to learn, to assess, to analyze impact – and to advocate for open, honest and accessible information.

Photo: ccrvoices.org

Why is trust eroding, how does it play out across different contexts and different groups, what are the implications, and what might be done about it? These are the organising questions behind the Trust in News Project being led by the Reuters Institute. In “What we think we know and what we want to know: perspectives on trust in news in a changing world” (3 December 2020), four key takeaways (so far) have been identified:

There is no single “trust in news” problem, but rather multiple challenges involving both the supply of news and demand for information. Different segments of the public, as well as journalists and researchers, hold different beliefs about how journalism works and sometimes conflicting views about what they expect from it.

Many scholars and practitioners have diagnosed problems in the production of news that may contribute to distrust. The effects of changing distribution practices, especially the important role played by platforms, are less well understood but are likely to be important.

Internal and external initiatives focused around transparency, engagement, and media literacy have shown promise, but empirical evidence about what works, with whom, and under what circumstances, remains murky.

Efforts to improve trust, as important as they may be, involve trade-offs in divided and polarised societies and can also be at odds with other important priorities, such as holding power to account.

Meanwhile, in a submission to the UN Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression (March 2021), the Centre for Law and Democracy has argued that governments should focus on measures that: build trust with citizens and enhance the flow of reliable, accurate information from official sources to citizens; ensure the adoption and implementation of strong right to information laws; promote a strong, independent and diverse media sector, including through supporting media sustainability initiatives and independent public service broadcasters.

But it’s not all down to governments. There is also the question of civil society’s role – learning how to read information sources for balance and bias – a skill that young and old need in order to survive in a world overloaded by fake news and infotainment. Trust is a two-way street.

Image above: WACC’s annual report

Timothy Garton Ash (“In the war of fake news versus facts, here’s what the next battle should be”, The Guardian, 8 February 2021) writes:

“To prosper, democracy needs a certain kind of public sphere, one in which citizens and their representatives engage in vigorous argument on the basis of shared facts. Restoring that kind of public sphere is now a central task for the renewal of liberal democracy. Call it the fact fightback.”

A public sphere of this kind demands education about the political, economic, and social systems that enable a liberal democracy to flourish. It also demands awareness of today’s media environments and how they are often manipulated by unscrupulous owners and leaders. As the ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu advised, “Know thy enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated.”

Timothy Garton Ash is under no illusion:

“To address this challenge, we need a twin-track strategy. On the first track, individual democracies must tackle the particular problems of their own national information environments. … Yet no single nation is big enough to take on the private superpowers of the digital world – Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter, Apple, Netflix. Here, on this second track, we need the co-ordinated action of a critical mass of democracies, starting with the US and those of the European Union.”

In short, the only way forward is a concerted movement at national and global levels, informed by in-depth consultation with civil society groups concerned about digital inclusion for all and supervised by an independent, fully financed body founded on basic principles of human rights. Together they will devise serious solutions that “involve technological innovation, business practice, fact-checking and digital education, as well as democratically mandated law and regulation.”

“Digital justice” will depend on awareness-building, accessibility, affordability, and the provision of technical skills. But while almost 4.66 billion people (59% of the global population) were active internet users as of October 2020, that says little about digital literacy. South and North, justice is still waiting in the wings.