Over recent years, international organisations like the EU and UNESCO have set up a number of proposals, models and frameworks that seek (i) to map and to conceptualize digital literacy and related concepts, e.g.information, digital or media literacy, digital competence, digital skills and (ii) to formulate policies u11-200ps and recommendations based on the conceptualizations developed.
The resulting frameworks, such as Digital Competence (DigComp) developed by the EU, or Media and Information Literacy (MIL) developed by UNESCO, have a strong formative power on a global scale.Affected are policies, laws, regulations, research activities, and academic disciplines like media pedagogy and mindsets.Do these frameworks consider the effects of disruptive attempts by digital media to intervene in public debates e.
g.social bots, biomat for sale fake news and other manifestations of biased or false information online? Do they offer avenues for reflection and action to address them? Guided by these questions, this paper studies the flagship frameworks on digital education of the EU and UNESCO, DigComp and MIL.It finds biases in both frameworks.
To different degrees, both tend to overemphasize the practical and instrumental use of digital literacy.