Digital Media Literacy and Youth Civic Reasoning in Kenya | Focus Group Discussion Report
The Youth Café seeks to equip young people with critical media literacy skills: critical thinking, fact-checking, online safety, social media verification, and quality assessment of online information and their sources through a dedicated handbook. Now more than ever, we need to enhance the fact-checking skills of the youth to restore eroded trust by fake news, improve their civic online reasoning and encourage responsible social media usage. These skills are critical in the electoral context in a bid to reduce political incitement, political strife, and tarnished political images and hate speech. These skills are essential in restoring and consolidating democracy in Kenya.
Evidence shows that digital tools and social media networks have been used to spread distorted narratives to shape public opinions. Through designing, developing, evaluating, and disseminating a Youth-Centered Digital Media Literacy Handbook, we hope to address digital threats to democracy in Kenya. In 2021, we’re zooming in on the relationship between media and election participation among young people, showing its importance, and exploring the principles and role of media and information literacy in meaningful youth civic engagement. As a result, through this partnership, we will undertake collaborative inquiry with a wide range of youth-led organizational partners, utilize peer-to-peer networks, catalyze conversations and encourage the inclusion of diverse youth voices in discussions about digital misinformation in the 2022 Kenyan elections.
Focus Group Discussions collect in-depth qualitative data to get insightful perspectives on a specific topic. This was the intent of the three Focus Group Discussions that we organized to understand digital media literacy in Kenya. As part of our Youth Excel project activity, we are looking to advance youth digital media literacy and civic reasoning in Kenya. We plan to do this through a dedicated digital media literacy handbook which will teach young people how to navigate the online space for more significant socio-political benefits.
The Focus Group Questions included:
Have you or anyone that you know encountered instances of social bullying targeted at specific groups of people? Kindly explain.
How do you understand emotional intelligence?
Why do you think ethical principles need to be applied in social media?
In your understanding, what should youths in Kenya be taught about media literacy and the use of information?
What problems do you believe exist in the way information is used on social media sites?
What thoughts, feelings, and associations come to mind first when you think about digital media literacy?
Kindly share the last political information you got from digital media that stuck in your mind?
How do you verify such information before sharing and acting on it?
The focus group discussions were attended by both men and women aged between 18 and 35 years from different communities in the country. Attendance at the focus groups varied from 5 to 7 people. Participants were requested to engage in a discussion and share their attitudes, behaviors, and knowledge encompassing media literacy, as well as their opinions and awareness about civic reasoning among the youths in Kenya. The proceedings of these focus group discussions were being recorded in real-time by the moderator with the participants' approval to keep an accurate record of the discussion, crucial in generating this summary report.
These focus group discussions were a necessary method for the human-centered approach we aimed to incorporate. It was clear that young people are eager to learn about digital media literacy and are willing to share ideas and perspectives in the process.
Recommendations:
The digital space lacks structure in the way information is spread and how authenticity is determined. A handbook could be handy if the methods of verification suggested consider the network of information passage and usage.
When talking of digital media literacy, young people are keen on sharing, collaboration, and verification. These keywords should be well covered in the handbook.
Many young people rely on other digital spaces for online information verification. This increases the vulnerability of their verification methods. Young people should thus be taught on reliance or overreliance on information in decision making.
Youths are vibrant and prefer a fast-paced interactive approach to learning. The digital media literacy handbook should thus adopt the same approach as a learning tool.
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