’Start teaching young people media literacy on time’

In times of fake news and endless streams of information, it is important that young people learn to critically reflect on what they read or see online. That is the opinion of Sanne Tamboer, a Communication Science researcher. On 20 July, she will receive her PhD on her research about how young people between the ages of 12 and 15 consume news and on ways to train them in media literacy. "When you open your telephone screen, you see loads of information and it's hard to determine what is important and what is true," the researcher said. "News is information that you do something with, such as form an opinion or talk to someone about. The news programmes make a selection for you: there's less news about things that happen very far away and are not major events. But online, for example, you also get the video made by a vlogger talking about his or her day.