The Media Education Summit was held in Sheffield, in September 19-20, 2013. It was a very British event, both in positive and negative meaning. Seen positively, there was lively but civilised discussion about wider socio-political and media related issues. Seen negatively, it was sometimes more about films and challenges that face British university in media studies and media literacy studies than about media literacy in a narrow sense. Also, the intellectual level of participants varied, when some PhD students presented not even their preliminary research results but rather their research plans. One senior researcher presented results of – well, she called it research – what in fact seemed to be common sense knowledge and our daily routines´ observation. In between, there were some key note speeches that were perhaps all too long (about 45 minutes each plus discussion).
Unusual event at conferences, but very much entertaining and welcome was Creative Skillset Reception & Quiz in the evening.
Among the highligths one can include presentation by Christa van Raalte Transmedia: Mindset or Skillset? What media employers think about graduate employability. This presention summarised international research which showed that employers actually prioritise among graduates of journalism studies conceptual skills most.
Andrej Školkay presented results of the research on The Role of the Media in Media Education: a European experience under EMEDUS Project.
And humble but brilliant Dutch (A. Driesen, J.v.Ouyrsel, J. t´Sas and W. Meeus) presented somehow undervalued Media Didactica Project – in fact a very promising reference framework for media literacy education for teacher educators.
The next Media Education Summit will be held in Prague, Czech Republic, inSeptember 2014.
