How competencies of media users contribute to deliberative communication

In this chapter, the authors, based on a comparative approach, examine the institutional conditions and the state of media competences of media users in 14 selected countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Sweden). The authors find that the state of media-related competences in the 14 countries varies considerably in terms of policy, agents, and evaluation. In all countries, media competencies are included in specific strategic documents, with varying levels of detail and coherence. Austria, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, and Slovakia have specific documents that describe the competencies in detail. In the rest of the countries, such competencies are mentioned in documents of a more general content, not only devoted specifically to media, and are not developed in such detail. The authors find that media competences are included in formal education more or less only as part of civic or language education, which is insufficient in the context of the current spread of disinformation. There is also a worrying decline in media literacy, which, in the context of declining reading and mathematical literacy, in almost all the countries studied, poses a risk to deliberative communication and democracy.