In a country where Malta's two major political parties each own a media house, and at a time where social media plays such a pivotal role in the news people receive, it so very important to recognize the importance of improving media literacy.

Fake news or misinformation, whether it is spread by politicians, individuals trying to spread support for unjust actions, or people trying to scam others, has sadly become something that we all need to deal with on a daily basis.

This underlines the importance of people being able to separate what is fact and what is false, and it is not always easy to do so. This is mainly because misinformation can use selected facts to try and back up claims, even if those ultimate claims are untrue.

Media literacy education can help combat this.

In Finland, media literacy forms part of the school curriculum, and focus is placed on the matter by educators and policymakers in an effort to combat disinformation and misinformation. The Malta Independent on Sunday spoke with Leo Pekkala, the deputy director of Finland's National Audiovisual Institute. Asked about the fundamentals of this sort of teaching and how it functions as part of the school curriculum, Pekkala explained that media literacy in Finland is not a standalone subject but is integrated across various subjects in the Finnish school curriculum.

"The official term is transversal skills," he said, continuing that all teachers and educators have to do something related to the topic in their teaching. He said that this education starts from early childhood and continues up to secondary level. "The core curriculum tells the overall goals for each school year, but it does not tell how exactly a teacher should teach these topics, so we give lots of freedom to the teachers to decide for themselves as they know the students best," Pekkala said.

"We have been teaching about media literacy even before (2014), so the adult population now, especially young adults, have all received some form of media literacy education in their formal schooling. We cannot scientifically confirm that this directly makes Finns more media literate and resistant to disinformation, but it appears to be the case, and we believe that it is mostly because of the education system."

He also said that children in Finland learn how journalistic media works, as well as the ethical codes of journalism. "So they understand the Finnish media quite well... It is not very easy to successfully spread disinformation in Finland."

Malta should work on improving media literacy education.

A recent youth Eurobarometer found that, when asked from which sources they get most of their information on political and social issues, the top response locally was social media platforms. That is highly concerning. It is also no wonder that the same survey showed that Malta is the EU member state in which the most youths have said that they have been exposed to disinformation and fake news. The good news was that Malta was also the member state where the highest percentage of respondents feel very confident that they can recognise disinformation when they encounter it (38% of respondents in Malta). This is good of course, but as time passes, the complexity of fake news increases and the importance of media literacy education becomes ever greater.

With AI becoming even more advanced, it will become harder and harder to tell what is real and what is false. Aside from that, political rhetoric as to what is good and bad for people, can also misinform. For instance, the constant use of positive words, repeated over and over again, can make something bad look good.

Here lies the importance of getting news from trustworthy sources and reading analytical pieces about issues from people with expertise in the respective field to sift through and separate rhetoric from fact. Using multiple sources of news could also help one come to the conclusion of what the truth is.

Social media can be a beneficial tool, but can also be used with bad intentions. One should not take what they read on social media as truth at face value.