Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to reach those who are (1) less engaged in current affairs, (2) vulnerable, or (3) have accessibility considerations, to help them tackle misinformation and disinformation; and how they will ensure that such groups have the necessary media literacy skills to identify misinformation or disinformation.

Her Majesty’s Government published its Online Media Literacy Strategy in July 2021, setting out plans to support the education and empowerment of people to make safe and informed choices online. The strategy has a particular focus on vulnerable users.

Through our Year 1 Online Media Literacy Strategy we established the pilot ‘Train the Trainer’ grant scheme. We administered £250,000 in funding to five media literacy organisations working with schools to adapt their resources for teachers of children with special educational needs. Three of the grantees specialise in news literacy programmes which help build resilience to misinformation and disinformation through information literacy.

Our Year 2 Action Plan announced plans to establish the Media Literacy Programme Fund which will further support media literacy organisations which are undertaking work to support vulnerable users. We have also established the expert Media Literacy Taskforce which has been charged with exploring how to extend the reach of media literacy initiatives to those who are disengaged or lack access to support.