For years, media literacy has largely been framed as a question of individual judgement: check the source, verify the photograph, compare different accounts, recognise manipulation and think before sharing.
Those skills still matter. But they describe only part of the information environment we now inhabit.
Before any of us decides whether to trust a headline, video, statistic or AI-generated answer, a much larger system has already shaped what reached us. Platforms rank and recommend. Creators learn what attracts attention. Political and commercial actors understand how visibility can be manufactured. News organisations make editorial choices. Advertising models reward particular forms of engagement. Increasingly, AI systems retrieve, compress and synthesise information before we ever encounter the original sources.
The difficult question is therefore no longer simply whether a piece of information is true or false. We also need to understand why this particular piece of information became visible to us, which interests shaped its journey, and who had the power to influence that process.
That distinction becomes especially important during Global Media and Information Literacy Week, whose 2026 theme is “We All Play a Part.”
We do all participate in contemporary information systems. Every share, click, comment and recommendation becomes part of the machinery through which information travels. But participation is not the same as power.
A citizen reposting a video, a journalist deciding how to frame a story, a political campaign paying to amplify a narrative, a platform designing a recommendation system and an AI company building an interface through which millions of people access knowledge all play a part. They do not occupy equivalent positions within the system.
This is why REDefine argues that contemporary media literacy needs to expand beyond content analysis.
It increasingly requires platform literacy, economic literacy, algorithmic literacy, political literacy and AI literacy. Citizens need to understand not only what information says, but something about the architecture deciding what becomes visible, persuasive, profitable and repeatable.
The same responsibility applies to institutions. Research organisations, public authorities, EU projects, media organisations and technology companies all make choices about evidence, visibility, framing and access. Asking individuals to become better fact-checkers cannot substitute for information systems that are transparent, accountable and worthy of trust.
Our new REDefine essay examines this wider problem through platforms, recommendation systems, the economics of attention, AI-mediated knowledge and democratic accountability.
The central question is not simply:
Can I trust this information?
It is also:
What shaped the version of reality that reached me?
Read the full article
Media Literacy Is About Power Now is published as a long-form REDefine article on LinkedIn.
Read the full article on LinkedIn →
The article explores why media literacy can no longer stop at spotting misinformation, how power operates through contemporary information systems, and why shared responsibility should never be confused with equal responsibility.
