Linking digital, visual, and civic literacy in an era of mis/disinformation: Canadian teachers reflect on using the Questioning Images tool

Pavlounis, Dimitrios, Pashby, Karen ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9967-8262 and Sanchez Morales, Fernando (2023) Linking digital, visual, and civic literacy in an era of mis/disinformation: Canadian teachers reflect on using the Questioning Images tool. Education Inquiry. pp. 1-18. ISSN 2000-4508

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Abstract

The spread of mis- and dis-information during elections creates an opportunity and an imperative to cultivate and develop critical civic literacy with young people. Leading up to the 2019 Canadian federal election, researchers worked with Canadian non-governmental organisation (NGO) CIVIX to translate research on visual media literacy into an innovative and timely teaching resource: Questioning Images. This paper explores what teachers’ responses to using this particular resource can highlight about the links between visual literacy, digital literacy, and civic literacy, to support critical digital citizenship education. After setting up the background to the study, we present key themes from focus groups with teachers who used the resource and then consider implications. Overall, we found the tool supported teachers in deepening their understanding of, and approach to, digital literacy and highlighting the importance of visual literacy, and it supported political education and civic literacy during and beyond the 2019 election. We argue, however, that further resourcing is needed to support a comprehensive approach to visual culture where digital, visual, and civic literacies are mutually constitutive and where visual analysis goes beyond verification to offer ways of understanding visual disinformation in terms of its broader civic implications.