Media literacy activities for children and young people in Northern Ireland

Ofcom has a requirement for media literacy activities that develop critical thinking about online content for children and young people in Northern Ireland.

As a minimum, the following must be delivered by September 2028:

• Embed critical thinking into delivery of content creation activities with children and young people and their parents in formal or informal education contexts
• We expect any activities or resources to be co-produced with target participants
• Organisations will ensure activities are embedded into existing activities, for example, delivering training, events, support or any other means necessary.
• There is an expectation of stakeholder engagement which will include:

o Promoting media literacy activities to relevant community organisations, schools or youth groups

o Supporting activities intended to inform policy development, which will be led by Ofcom

o Seeking input from expert steering group, which will be led by Ofcom

o Working in partnership with any other organisations commissioned by Ofcom in relation to media literacy in Northern Ireland

• Organisations will work with Ofcom’s evaluation adviser to produce a theory of change, key evaluation questions and data collection tools following the approach outlined in our evaluation toolkit
• Organisations will be willing to share learnings with Ofcom’s Making Sense of Media network