Charter for Media Literacy

The idea of the Charter is to raise the profile of media literacy as a significant portfolio of skills, knowledge and understanding needed by every citizen in the 21st Century. We hope that it will help to establish the value of media literacy and encourage both public and private investment in its development.

The European Charter for Media Literacy launched in Brussels (press release, PDF)

The Charter was drawn up by a Task Group comprising representatives of the UK Film Council, the BFI, Channel Four, the BBC and Skillset. It provides a broad definition of media literacy, to which many individuals and agencies in education and the media have pledged their support. At a briefing for the Minister for Film, James Purnell, on 10 November 2005, a number of leading figures and three of the Charter's Patrons expressed their enthusiasm for the idea of the Charter.

List of organisations who have pledged their support

Sign the Charter and access a database of European media literacy provision at www.euromedialiteracy.net. Signatories can be individual supporters (who simply want to register their agreement with the Charter's principles), sponsors (agencies and institutions indicating the support of their whole organisation) and providers, who will also sign additional clauses 4 and 5, which commit them to specific actions in relation to the Charter.

The Patrons of the Charter are:

• Professor Eric Bolton CB
• Professor Tim Brighouse
• Lord Smith of Finsbury
• Professor Sir Christopher Frayling
• Michael Grade CBE
• Bonnie Greer
• Anna Home OBE
• Duncan Kenworthy OBE
• Anthony Minghella CBE
• Baroness Morris of Yardley
• Lord Puttnam
• June Sarpong
• Anthony Smith CBE
• Stewart Till CBE

A read-only version of the Charter - for information only - is available to download:

Download Charter for Media Literacy (PDF, 35kb)

We would be interested to hear your opinion on the Charter, so please send any comments to the Education contact page with 'Charter' in the message subject box. Please do also get in touch if you would like to add your organisation to the current list of supporters.