Welcome to the MLI Monthly Update!
Have something you want to share with the membership? Tell us about it by emailing us at info@medialiteracyireland.ie. We are particularly interested in including your resources in our new resources section of the MLI website.
The content in this newsletter is a collection of media literacy related news and information from a wide range of sources and inclusion does not imply the endorsement of Media Literacy Ireland.
This Month in Media Literacy
Summer is over and we are back with a bang! Thank you to everyone who entered the MLI Awards. The calibre of entries this year was incredible, and the shortlist will be announced very soon. In the meantime, we have lots to catch up on. The big news is that Coimisiún na Meán’s Media Literacy Countering Disinformation Micro Fund and Innovation Fund are now open for applications, but you need to be quick as the deadline for applications is 9 October. There’s news about an exciting new Community Trainer programme from MLI, new research and a campaign from FraudSMART, and a brilliant opportunity from Tactical Tech – not to mention lots of events coming up.
Announcements
Coimisiún na Meán’s Media Literacy Micro Fund and Innovation Fund open for applications
Coimisiún na Meán has announced €100,000 in support for media literacy initiatives aimed at countering disinformation. The funding is divided into two separate strands for activities in line with the National Counter Disinformation Strategy. The Micro Fund will seek to provide micro grants for community-based media literacy activities up to a maximum of €3,000 per application, while the Innovation Fund will offer grants to collaborative innovation projects up to a maximum of €25,000 per application. The deadline for submissions is 9 October.
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MLI seeking Community Trainers for new media literacy training programme
Are you interested in delivering media and information literacy training to communities across Ireland? MLI, in collaboration with EDMO Ireland, is launching an exciting new training programme designed to equip participants to respond to the media literacy learning needs within communities. The programme is based on the media literacy experience and insights gathered from previous training programmes and international best practice. Interested parties are invited to complete this ‘expression of interest’ form before the 6 November.
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FraudSMART encourages people to ‘See the Scam Behind the Screen’
Up to 85 percent of Irish adults received suspicious calls, texts, emails or online content at least once a month in 2026, according to new research from FraudSMART. The research also showed that there is a gap between sensing danger and acting correctly on one’s instinct. The findings prompted FraudSMART to develop the ‘See the Scam Behind the Screen’ campaign, which targets social engineering – the manipulation of human emotion and trust that sits behind most of today’s scams.
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Hosts needed for the Toxic Triangle interactive experience
Tactical Tech, based in Berlin, Germany, is looking for organisations and educators to host its 30–90-minute Toxic Triangle interactive experience, which offers a unique view into the world of social media and the youth. Designed for decision makers, foundations, journalists, and NGOs advocating for change, the experience reveals young people’s experiences of using AI and social media. It also offers a behind-the-scenes look at why the toxic triangle happens, explores how the technologies work, and how the system is monetised.
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Why Cybersecurity Literacy in Primary School Can’t Wait: The SECURE Solution
Children are growing up in a world shaped by platforms, devices, data and algorithms. Technology supports engagement, collaboration and access to information but also raises real questions about privacy, trust, security and the skills children need to confidently navigate digital spaces. Cybersecurity education cannot wait until secondary school – that’s the thinking behind the SECURE initiative. Led by the UCD Centre for Cyber Resilience Education, SECURE focuses on supporting primary teachers to build the knowledge, skills and confidence to introduce cybersecurity in meaningful, classroom-friendly ways.
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Calls to the Media Literacy Community
Call for submissions: Guidelines for Effective Media Literacy Initiatives
Do you think your media literacy initiative could be a best practice case-study? If so, EDMO wants to hear about it as part of the ongoing development of the Guidelines for Effective Media Literacy Initiatives. Submissions are welcome from any kind of media literacy initiative (including educational initiatives, tools, campaigns, training programmes, or research-informed practices) that clearly demonstrates how the EDMO Guidelines can be applied in practice. The call will close on Friday 30 October.
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UNESCO request for proposals: Practical manual for educators on MIL and AI
UNESCO has issued a request for proposals to develop and pilot a practical manual for educators that builds on its recently developed module on MIL and AI, which has the working title: Teaching Media and Information Literacy in AI-Mediated Information Environments. The deadline for proposals is 6 November.
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Call for contributions: UN 2026 Survey on Information Integrity
The United Nations Department of Global Communications is seeking contributions to the 2026 Survey on Information Integrity. This is an opportunity to showcase the important work being carried out globally to strengthen information integrity. Contributions will help build a more complete global picture of information integrity challenges and efforts, including in support of the Sustainable Development Goals. The survey will remain open until 1 October and can be accessed here.
Research and Reports
UNESCO research: Sustaining Education as a Common Good in the Age of AI: The Case for Deliberative Governance
Artificial intelligence is widely used in classrooms globally. Used well and governed deliberately, AI can benefit everyone involved in education, but a new United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) discussion paper is warning that public governance is struggling to keep pace and needs to be introduced to oversee the technology as a matter of urgency.
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Ofcom report: One in five UK adults are now using AI tools to access news
Ofcom’s News Report 2026 reveals dramatic shifts in how news is being distributed and consumed across the UK’s fragmented media landscape. The annual report details how more than eight in 10 adults (82 percent) accessed news via online sources in the past month – more than any other platform – although television remains a major route to news (79 percent), particularly among older audiences.
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The RepPlaybook: A Field Guide to the Climate and Information Crisis
The RePlaybook from Tactical Tech gathers insights from 30 organisations and practitioners on how the distortion of knowledge is accelerating polarisation, radicalisation, and confusion – endangering our ability to respond to climate change. From attention-sucking algorithms to AI-generated slop, it explores how our information environment is shaping and influencing opinion on climate change and offers strategies to decode disorder, challenge tech paradigms, and counteract division.
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Research: Artificial intelligence and children’s rights: a narrative review of the evidence
Children and young people play a unique role in the digital ecosystem. Published in late August by the London School of Economics and Political Science, a new report called Artificial intelligence and children’s rights: a narrative review of the evidence evaluates contemporary evidence on children and AI, including emerging best practice. The research is organised in accordance with the 11 themes of the Joint Statement on Artificial Intelligence and the rights of the child (2025), with the aim of collating and evaluating the evidence underpinning its recommendations.
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Evidence from Ireland’s Presidential Election: Are tech companies meeting their election protection obligations?
The European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) Ireland flagged 177 suspect social media posts to platforms for review during Ireland’s 2025 presidential election as part of its research into the issue. However, platforms only acted on 13 of the 85 items flagged as electoral disinformation, states the report, Are Tech Companies Meeting their Obligations to Protect Elections. Only Instagram and TikTok acted on these items.
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Key Partner Updates
Coimisiún na Meán opened applications this month for its Media Literacy Countering Disinformation Micro and Innovation Funds for media literacy initiatives in line with the National Counter Disinformation Strategy. Applicants are encouraged to read the guidelines and make their submissions before 12 noon on 9 October.
Coimisiún na Meán also recently published its Online Safety and Children’s Digital Lives Report, as part of the wider EU Kids Online study, and presented key findings about children’s attitudes to online safety and their media literacy knowledge and skills.
For students returning to school this September, a new Student FAQs section on the cnam.ie website offers information for students of Politics and Society, CSPE, SPHE and Digital Media Literacy. In addition, on 8 October, Coimisiún na Meán will host a webinar together with the Politics and Society Teachers Association of Ireland that will introduce some of its educational resources and provide an opportunity to ask questions related to the current Leaving Certificate PolSoc Citizenship Project titles.
If you would like to receive information about future educational resources, events and updates from the Media Literacy and User Education team at Coimisiún na Meán, you can sign up using this form.
Events
RESONANT Final Event – 5 October
Registration will close on 1 October for the final hybrid event of the RESONANT project entitled Enhancing resilience against Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) targeting diaspora communities. The project’s key achievements will be showcased and three years of research on FIMI and information suppression targeting diaspora communities will be highlighted.
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Disinfo2026 – 7 to 8 October
The counter-disinformation community will meet for #Disinfo2026 in Vilnius, Lithuania. The main conference days on 7–8 October will feature a full programme of sessions in a variety of formats, and pre-conference workshops will be organised on 6 October. The programme for this event is now available.
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Copyright and Human Creativity in the Age of AI Conference – 14 October
Registration is now open for the Copyright and Human Creativity in the Age of AI conference which will take place at the Irish Film Institute as part of Ireland’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union. Jointly hosted by NewsBrands Ireland and the Irish Recorded Music Association, the conference will bring together a diverse range of panellists, including policymakers, legal experts, rights holders, creators and representatives from across the media and creative industries, to explore the challenges and opportunities presented by AI and its impact on copyright and human creativity.
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Wednesday Webinar: Media literacy in closed environments – 21 October
As part of its Wednesday webinar series, Media and Learning Association invites participants to delve into the world of media literacy in closed environments, such as prisons, detention, and restricted information spaces. Across Europe, prisons and other secure settings are increasingly adopting digital education systems and technologies as part of broader efforts to support rehabilitation, reintegration, and digital inclusion. The session will explore what media literacy means in closed and controlled information environments and what happens when access to information is restricted, curated, mediated, or closely monitored.
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MLA4MedLit online conference – 23 October
Registration is open for Media and Learning Association’s annual conference MLA4MedLit 2026: Whose Literacy? Whose Rights? Interrogating Digital and Media Literacy for Everyone. As media literacy becomes an ever more central pillar of digital citizenship and societal resilience, the conference will invite participants to question some of the field’s own assumptions about who is being reached, who is being left out, and who gets to decide what ‘literacy for everyone’ really means.
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UNESCO Global Media and Information Literacy Week 2026 – 24 to 31 October
Themed We All Play a Part – Media Information Literacy for the People, this year’s hybrid gathering brings together regional and thematic events organised by UNESCO offices and partners across the world. By showcasing practical initiatives, fostering cross-sector partnerships, and promoting knowledge exchange across regions, Global MIL Week 2026 aims to strengthen international cooperation and highlight how collective action can advance media and information literacy for everyone. Flagship events will take place across the world. MIL stakeholders can register their own events.
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Access Media Session 5: Misinformation and Disinformation in the Media: The Impact on Disabled People – 10 November
Created by Disabled Women Ireland and the Disability Participation News Hub, and funded by Coimisiún na Meán, the Access Media series is holding its fifth and final session on the impact of mis- and disinformation on disabled people in November. Sign up here to learn how inaccurate and damaging narratives take hold, spread, and become embedded in public understanding, and what journalists and disabled people can do to challenge them.
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Age-Friendly AI Assembly – 17 November
The Age-Friendly AI Assembly, which takes place in Galway on 17 November, is a key element of Age-Friendly AI, Ireland’s national AI literacy and dialogue initiative for older adults. Register for the event here. Assembly participants will be asked to reflect on the process around the initiative to date and the key insights gleaned from it and help shape key recommendations for a forthcoming expert report on Age-Friendly AI.
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Grassroots Media Literacy: Community-led approaches to building trust and digital resilience – 18 November
Part of the Media and Learning Association Wednesday Webinars on Digital & Media Literacy in Europe series, this webinar will try to answer the question: Who teaches media literacy when institutions don’t reach people?
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Whose childhood, whose safety? Marginalised youth and social media bans – 19 November
Hosted by the Digital Futures for Children Centre and 5Rights Foundation, this in-person and online event will explore how social media bans may affect marginalised and minority youth and how a child rights-respecting approach is key to this new government policy. Register now for a place.
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MILES EU EDU-Conference: Against Disinformation – Towards Critical Thinking – 27 November
The MILES project develops innovative approaches for teachers, students, and parents, supporting them in building media and information literacy, introducing the concept of pre-bunking, and strengthening data and digital literacy skills. This six-hour, hybrid conference will dive into the world of disinformation and explore ways to boost critical thinking in education and connect like-minded educators and policy makers. It is free to attend in person in Brussels or online but registration is required.
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In Case You Missed It
FuJo report investigates the impact of language inequalities on disinformation
Dublin City University’s digital technology research centre, FuJo, published a new report in July that investigates mis- and disinformation and how it is experienced across the world’s 7,000+ living languages. It found that only around 100 of these languages have meaningful representation in the datasets used to train AI systems. Furthermore, a large majority of online content is produced in a handful of dominant languages, particularly English. This means that the languages least served by platform content moderation, fact-checking infrastructure and language technology are also the languages in which false and manipulative content can circulate longest without detection or correction.
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Report examines amplification of Islamophobia via social media
Published in August by the Hope and Courage Collective, The Islamophobia Playbook: A Project of Hate examines anti-Muslim incidents over two years and in 2026. The investigation presents an in-depth case study of the role of social media in the alleged arson attack on the Al Madinah Prayer Hall (Talbot Street Mosque) in Dublin.
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Large numbers join Age-Friendly AI online training session
Age-Friendly AI, Ireland’s national AI literacy initiative for older adults, welcomed a large number of people to their online training session which took place in June. Participants were drawn from across 14 counties and included representatives from libraries, county councils, community organisations and educational institutions. The training took 60 minutes and covered the following sections: Getting to Know AI, Spotting the Difference between Human and Artificial Intelligence, and Seeing Different Sides of AI.
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Resource of the Month
Growing Up in a Connected World: A Family Guide for the Digital Age
Designed to support families navigating today’s rapidly evolving digital information ecosystem, Growing Up in a Connected World: A Family Guide for the Digital Age is a flagship global resource from UNESCO–CLEMI. The guide, which was shaped by lived family experiences and informed by over 35 experts from around the globe, offers evidence-based recommendations, educational expertise and concrete actionable guidance for parents, educators and policymakers.
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Looking for media literacy resources?
The resources section of the MLI website provides easy access to a variety of resources on a wide range of media literacy topics. You can now filter by topic, target audience and resource type. If you would like to submit a resource for inclusion in this library, please complete this form.
Thanks for reading!
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Kind regards,
The MLI Team
