I sat down to speak with Grace Msauki over Zoom one August morning. Our conversation was sprawling, covering Grace’s passion for community development, exploring her expertise in information literacy, and imagining her vision for a media literate future. Calling in from Milwaukee, WI, Grace retraced the first weeks of her 4-month internship as an IREX Community Solutions Program Fellow in the American midwest.
Originally from Zimbabwe, Grace is a professional librarian working for the Zimbabwe Information and Technology Empowerment Trust as a Programs Coordinator and for Zimbabwe Economic Policy Analysis and Research Unit as a Librarian and Outreach Officer. Her work centers on establishing access to digital spaces and cultivating digital equity and competencies. Through her work, she employs media and information literacy as a means to build community, create agency, and encourage learning– in a word, to empower.
Grace’s expertise and background as well as the values and passion that drives her work guided our discussion.
Read our edited conversation below.
To begin with, would you please introduce yourself and the CSP fellowship.
Yes, of course. I’m a librarian by profession. I’ve been in the profession for more than ten years now. For my community work, I serve as a Programs Coordinator for the Zimbabwe Information and Technology Empowerment Trust which is a nonprofit organization that seeks to promote digital equity amongst underserved communities in Zimbabwe. We organize programs and initiatives in media literacy, media and information literacy, and digital rights and safety. We’ve also done work in digital activism, focusing on responsible use of the internet, digital technologies, media, and the information that they find in online sources, and how to be responsible digital citizens. My work aims to contribute towards community development, through sharing my skills and experience as an information professional on how one can make use of information and digital technology for lifelong learning, entrepreneurship, finding opportunities, and for professional development.
My passion for community development got me to be part of the Community Solutions Program (CSP). The CSP program is a professional leadership development fellowship program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State with funding provided by the U.S. Government and supported in its implementation by IREX . It is an opportunity for community leaders, like me, to develop leadership skills to advance their work back home in their communities. I am grateful to be placed at IC4ML, as I am learning and collaborating with media literacy experts and expanding my professional network. I am also getting to know other CSP fellows who are doing amazing work and who are also working in the transparency and accountability thematic track. My approach to this theme is inquiring into how media and information literacy skills fosters democratic accountability and transparency.
You’ve been with IC4ML through the CSP program for a couple weeks now. Will you describe your work with IC4ML and what the past couple of weeks have looked like.
IC4ML focuses on media literacy and the way that I approach the work that we are doing is from a Media and Information Literacy point of view, where we are mainstreaming media literacies and information literacies and digital literacy work to enhance the way people make use of digital technology, media and information. The work that I’ve been mostly doing is finding ways to make the different disciplines of information literacy, media literacy, and digital literacy as a collective agenda. I am bringing in my experience and exposure to information literacy, and looking forward to learning more about media literacy. I have realized that I have limited knowledge when it comes to media literacy because what I thought was media literacy was more aligned towards the work that I am doing and what my background is in– librarianship. It is an exciting opportunity for me to contribute my knowledge and experience in Media and Information Literacy as defined by UNESCO. I am also collaborating with my CSP Alumni Mentor and colleague Nancy Kwangwa to publish a journal article in the Fall issue of the Journal of Media Literacy where we explore media literacy, information literacy, and digital literacy, and how these literacies can be critical in enhancing community development and social justice in Africa.
You mention how much of your approach to media literacy comes from your expertise and your profession within information literacy. It’s fantastic that we are going to be exploring more of that overlap with you and within this article that you are writing. What are some of the connections between media literacy and information literacy you’ve come across so far?
You know what I’ve noticed? We address the two as separate disciplines but there are so many overlaps that makes it so difficult to clearly distinguish the two. For example both literacies aim to make sure that people think critically- to energize critical thinking skills- in working with media and digital technology. Both literacies also exist to encourage responsible behavior dealing with media and digital technology. From the media literacy point of view, we encourage people to responsibly use the internet and media content and to be responsible media users and content creators which is the same thing information literacy also focuses on. Then with digital literacy, it’s all about being aware of the responsibility that you have in ensuring safe online spaces which is basically what media literacy and information literacy focus on. There are so many overlaps that I’ve noticed, and I’m hoping that through the Journal of Media Literacy there will be more connections that will be made by the article contributors.
One thing that I’ve also seen is that both these literacies also empower people to reap the benefits of digital technology and digital society. That’s basically what I’ve been working towards, just approaching it from different lenses.
What you’ve said about responsibility and these guiding values really ring true throughout all the literacies we’ve been discussing.
UNESCO is also doing a good job in terms of trying to get all the players to come together because it really should just be a collective effort. We can achieve more by working together than as competitors. It’s better to be colleagues and collaborators. We should all be working together.
That’s such a great perspective to have- working as collaborators- because ultimately, there are so many unifying goals that we all share. For me particularly, as I experience the internet and as I experience media, it’s increasingly hard to distinguish one from the other- the internet from information or media from the internet. Most of what I do as a young person is facilitated by the internet and how I access information. I see within my community and my age group, a need for critical thinking. Do you see similar needs within the communities and young people you work with?
The need I see isn’t in terms of my country Zimbabwe, it’s more like a continental thing because people use technology from a very young age yet they don’t get formal training, or media education or information literacy skills training at the early stages of their lives. It’s something that the world is yet to embrace to ensure that certain literacies are instructed from as early as five years old because our children are actually exposed to technology before they are even trained with skills. It’s so hard sometimes to introduce the three literacies when they already have been exposed to the technology. There is really an urgent need for African states or world states to raise awareness and drafting policies that ensure that the three literacies are introduced at a very young age through the formal education system so that it becomes easier for those skills to become more like a lifestyle as they grow because technology is changing. We see new things that are coming up. Some of us can’t even keep up with it. You can’t technically. If you introduce the skills at a very young age, it will help them as they grow up in the digital society. By the time they become responsible enough to make decisions on their own, they will have those competencies and skills that will help them through the internet and technology. We need these skills to become more like a lifestyle.
I love the conceptualization of these various literacies as a lifestyle. I think with how pervasive media and technology are within everyone’s life, there are certain limits to thinking of it as just a skill to be applied only deliberately at certain times. Whereas with a lifestyle, that means it’s something that you are constantly engaging with. That’s a great way to conceptualize it, and I’ve never thought of it like that before. That’s wonderful.
A lot of what we’ve been speaking about has us looking forward- how media and technology are constantly evolving and how we interact with both as well are always evolving. As media literacy and information literacy try to keep up, how do you envision this future?
It’s difficult to say. I don’t know what the future will be like in terms of technology. But then, it still goes back to the fact that we have to envision a world where everyone has that consciousness or these competencies. People should be really aware and be alert to the existence of this need as internet users or as digital citizens. We have to ensure that it is embedded not only in these literacies but also in various disciplines. We should have policies that create an internet environment with responsibility towards media and information literacy or even in media and information literacy separately that really allows for these literacies, these skills, or these competencies to be embedded. It’s really a matter of recognizing the critical importance of these literacies in the development of processes, sustainable development, and in ensuring equity– because these days people are not really talking about the inequalities that are really happening in the world all over. So if we really make sure that these are central in a lot of conversations, it would actually help.
I think that’s so true. I think what you’re saying about how we need to embed these competencies is so true. One thing I’ve been grappling with these past two years is bridging the divide from the abstract to proper application. So as we try our best to develop this lifestyle, these competencies, digital citizenship, what concrete steps can we take to implement them?
I think having actual frameworks and action plans so that we can pull from all these conversations that we continue to have because in terms of conversations, we have really done so much work. We have organized meetings. We have had conferences. There’s a lot out there. We now have to implement what we have already been talking about. One way of doing that is having strategic advocacy tools or strategies that are laid out. We really have to follow up on them to make sure that they are being effective. It is actually easier for us to then follow up when we have a legal framework or when we have a policy that says we are going to be embedding these literacies as part of our organizational frameworks… We need to figure it out and see how best to put them into action so that we can realize our goals.
We can’t separate these literacies from innovation and technology and how the world is changing, so having more civil and societal organizations or professions to take up such initiatives would embed them more. So that even out of school, we have other organizations to offer support.
It’s a big task. It’s so important. I think it feels daunting to look at the future especially as we live in an ever-changing media and information environment. With that being said, thinking about the future, as we wrap up our conversation, do you have anything else you’d like to share?
I think it all goes back to what we have talked about, having these literacies be part of our lifestyles and really try to show that they are embedded in government policy and community development initiatives and frameworks. It really should be something that people are in touch with in their day to day life. Because with the rise of misinformation and fake news in online spaces, it is increasingly important for people to possess media and information literacy skills. It really is something that we have to continue driving towards. UNESCO actually acknowledges that there is no way we can come to a point where we can really say that a society has actually reached a state of being media and information literate because of the way that technology and media change. It’s actually a process that we have to continue to approach and continue to develop different strategies for. We need to learn from what we have already done– looking back at our failures and the lessons that we have learned to try to work towards getting new, innovative ways to work on media, information, and digital literacy collectively.
What a great note to end on.
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