ABSTRACT

This chapter compares how governments in different media system models attract various actors outside the school systems in media literacy and education programmes for diverse public and target groups. Considering external factors in media and information literacy development, the role of the EU and its policies have to be acknowledged in particular for the Hybrid Model countries. Among the main actors in the schools and in other sectors in the UK, there is the Office of Communications, an independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries that has a mission to promote media literacy across the country. Understanding the media and their role in education and socialization has been a rather diversified process in terms of approaches, practices and actors involved in MIL, from a protectionist approach that perceives the media as a threat and danger to the perception of the media as a tool for public empowerment, promoting institutional, structural and individual change in contemporary society.