Feelings from the SeAMK Media Skills Week

Today, each of us is more or less exposed to a flood of social media information. The information is available on your smartphone, car radio, various applications, and even in the workplace, TEAMS or at least Intra. The competition of you attention is constantly. Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences’ Digital Skills – ESR React funded Digi Skill team participated in the National Media Skills Week in February 7.-13.2022. During the week, we organised short information campaigns related to information security, digital image, information retrieval, social media logic, media transformation, YLE’s operations and digitalisation. A total of nearly 50 SeAMK employees, both students and staff, participated in the events during the week.

As you may see from SeAMK’s Media Skills Week programme, media skills are a broad-based entity that is an integral part of digital expertise. Media skills have a significant impact on our participation in both the work and student community and society. At worst, shortcomings in media skills can create a digital divide and lead to a weakening of the individual’s involvement. According to the Media Education Society, media skills can be considered civic skills, such as making and publishing various media content, interpreting content, information retrieval and critical information assessment skills, communication and interaction skills in the media, and participatory skills. The skills are divided into all aspects of digital skills in the DigComp 2.0 framework (Carratero Gomez, Vuorikari & Punie 2017).

Significant investments have been made in media education for children and young people for a long time, but adult media skills have not received as much attention. However, there is a reason: despite the amount of fake news, disinformation, propaganda and ignorance, the amount of information being disseminated has increased as global crises hit people around the world. The majority of the Finnish adult population has also attended comprehensive school before media skills became part of basic education plans. However, the majority of us have independently learned to operate in different varying terrains of social media and other media.

Not every one of us needs to become a dazzling social media personality, but it’s worth remembering to regularly update our own skills to keep up with the rapid development of digitalisation. At its best, advanced media skills also bring a new dimension of inclusion and the opportunity to join new communities, regardless of time and physical location. With advanced media skills, you can also increase your own influence opportunities to help you develop things that are important to you. The final learning circles of digital capability spring 2022 will begin to be at hand before the summer break, so you will still have time to review our event offerings at  SeAMK Intra and SeAMK Academy. Personal assistance will also be available during the summer. Feel free to contact the Digi talent team!

Essi Hauta
Expert, RDI

The writer works with ESR REACT -funded Digi Skills project as an expert. Read more about the project here.

Lähteet

Carretero Gomez, S., Vuorikari, R. and Punie, Y., 2017. DigComp 2.1: The Digital Competence Framework for Citizens with eight proficiency levels and examples of use, EUR 28558 EN, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2017, doi:10.2760/38842

Mediakasvatusseura i.a. https://mediakasvatus.fi/mediakasvatus/#toggle-id-3 (viitattu 25.3.)