IC4ML is excited to welcome Safa Sadeddine, an IREX Community Solutions Program Fellow from Algeria to Milwaukee, Wisconsin for a 4-month internship from August through November. She brings with her an incredible skill set as a social media content creator and a media literacy educator in her home country. Through her collaboration with our board members and other interns, we are all learning so much together. Hannah Conner, IC4ML’s Board Member and Social Media Intern spent some time getting to know Safa and shares her interview with her here.
Safa Sadeddine and I called early one Saturday morning in September.
Although we had met before and had collaborated on a handful of projects, I found myself eager to learn more about her. I was already familiar with her assured presence throughout busy Zoom meetings. I had already witnessed her detailed and quick thinking and had already grown to appreciate the philosophies that motivated her to advocate for Media Literacy. Nevertheless, I was curious to learn more about how she came across Media Literacy and forged it among her values.
For the past year, Sadeddine has served as the Agenda Manager and Content Creator for the Algerian Media Literacy Camp. As a Content Creator, she has cultivated a flourishing presence on social media where she creates posts pertaining to Media Literacy, her studies at Taleb Mourad faculty of medicine, and her life in the province of Sidi Bel Abbes on the Northwest side of Algeria.
For the past two months, Saadeddine has collaborated with IC4ML as the council’s first Fellow.
As Sadeddine and I spoke on yet another Zoom meeting that Saturday, she passionately explained her introduction to Media Literacy. She detailed her vision for IC4ML and described the nuances that distinguish it. That September morning we shared our thoughts about the importance of Media Literacy. And as Sadeddine talked to me from her apartment in Milwaukee, WI, we also shared a timezone.
Read our edited conversation below.
To start off with, how were you first introduced to media literacy?
It was the Pandemic time, and I was creating health-related content about medicine. It was very chaotic and we didn’t know how to act, what to do, or how things would go. One time, I was sharing information about COVID, and somebody messaged me and said “Safa, how can I know that what you’re saying is true? I’m hearing different information from people. How can I know that what you’re saying is the accurate information?” I was like “Okay, that’s a really good question and so give me some time. I need to solve this. That’s really philosophical.” So I took my time and I Googled some things. Through a Google search I stumbled upon a term called “media literacy” and I didn’t know what it was… because literacy actually means to learn how to read and write. I was like “Read and write? Media?” So I started to get more and more into it and I really liked it. I spent maybe three weeks just collecting where I could learn this from. Then I took a couple courses- maybe two or three courses. They were light about digital literacy, about media literacy. One took me two weeks. One took me three weeks. And I said, “My people really need to know about this.” I thought it was really cool and really hip. I thought wow this is what the world needs like literally in the age of media. And I wondered, why is there not enough media coverage about media literacy? So because I am a content creator, I said “You know, I’m going to shift. My followers need to hear about this.” I tend to share a lot about what I learn on a daily basis. So I started to make short videos- 30 seconds to one minute videos, explaining basic concepts of media literacy such as filter bubble, or how to reverse search an image or how to spot misinformation from disinformation. And it was the most successful series I ever made on social media. I got a lot of feedback. People were texting me saying “Ooh look! I double-checked this. I fact-checked this. I tried to reverse-search an image like that.” And I thought “Wow!” One more thing is that other people in media literacy started emailing me, messaging me, and giving me other sources, offering me other sources to learn from. I felt like “Wow! This is something, and all I need to do is give it to the people.” So that was how I was first introduced to it. Then I tried to dig more into it. I joined the Algerian Media Literacy Camp as an Agenda Manager and I met a lot of professors in the field and a lot of people who were interested in media literacy.
Wow, I think it’s really great how you are approaching Media Literacy as a content creator. With that being said, what is unique about the perspective you bring to Media Literacy?
I think that from the very start, I thought that Media Literacy should be given to the people and the regular consumers- the day-to-day consumers of media. While in fact, it’s being treated only by academics and educators, and it’s not reaching the day-to-day consumers of media more. My approach is like I want to give this to the people. I need to give this to the people who haven’t heard about it, who need it more. Like a professor does not need as much Media Literacy as someone who has never been familiar with the concept. So I want to deliver this to the people who have never heard about it. I want to raise awareness about it. I just want people to get familiar with the term then we can work on the complex issues. So my approach was basically to simplify and to familiarize Media Literacy to people, to the regular consumers of media, to young people, and to older people in a very simple way so that they can be familiar with it.
That’s a great idea. Even in just my one year of being with IC4ML, I see that need a lot especially being a younger person within the network. Your answer transitions nicely to my next question which is… what is your vision for the future of Media Literacy and how does your approach tie into that vision?
My vision is a bit weird but Media Literacy needs to be famous. That’s what I think it should be. It needs to be famous. It needs to turn into a movement because we are living in it. It’s our future and our kids’ future. Being media skillful should be a hard skill. We still aren’t treating it that way sadly. I don’t know if you’ve heard of that famous short story where two fish are swimming in the sea and a third fish comes by and says “Hey boys, how’s the water?” So they keep swimming for a while and then one says to the other, “What the hell is water?” So this is basically it. It’s what the hell is media even though we are swimming in it. It’s basically our world.
I think that’s such a great analogy because we are so immersed in media and we use it on such a- day-to-day even feels like too big of a parameter- a minute-to-minute basis, but a lot of times we don’t realize that what we’re using is mediated- that there’s that extra nuance that has many implications.
How do you see yourself bringing this vision to your work with IC4ML?
I don’t know if you’ve heard that the motto of IC4ML is “Bridging Academia to Action…” which is what we need. I want to help do that in a very modern way since I am young. I can make TikTok videos and Instagram reels. And I think this is a skill that I need to use so I am so happy and so thrilled to absorb the academic concepts and the academic approaches and then turn them into something very approachable and very fun to hear and simple to understand. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s doable and more people will need to do it. The hard part is to make it fun- is to have concrete answers when sometimes there are none and to have concrete steps when sometimes there are some issues in media that we can do nothing about, but as Media Literacy people we still need to give a set of steps to do. It’s really hard to put in words. Sometimes we just need to say “We don’t know yet. We need to wait. We just have to wait.” A huge part of Media Literacy is just waiting, to wait and see, not to be prompted to make something. That’s the challenging part- to make it fun and to have a set of steps to do.
Would you like to describe some of your work with IC4ML so far and how you ended up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin of all places.
I am lucky! I’m lucky. I’m happy to be here. I feel blessed. I am doing a four month fellowship with the International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX). It’s the Community Solution Program where we have an internship with an organization and basically we do the same work that we do at home, and then we go back to our home country and we implement our project or we keep working on the projects that we already have. And so I applied to the program and they linked me to IC4ML and I was so happy and so thrilled that they did that. I want to learn from them as much as I want to also work with them and try to merge our two programs and grow our network because it is an international thing.
We’re so excited to have you. I really want to highlight the act of exchange. I know you want to learn a lot, but even in just the three weeks that we’ve been communicating I’ve learned so much from you. I’m so happy that this all worked out.
You emphasize that IC4ML is an international council, do you see any differences for the demand for Media Literacy or the practice of Media Literacy in your home country and in various other countries you’ve been to like the US?
I can tell it’s different because the people and the ideologies are different. I come from a very monocultural country whether it’s philosophically or religious-wise or tradition-wise. I’ve definitely noticed it’s very different. We still treat media as something that is… something that is not very controlling. We don’t see media as very controlling when in fact it is. I don’t think we rely on it as much as the American people. But still because we are at that step, we need to set the route before it gets hectic. That’s what I think it is. I could tell from my experience how it is different and how culture and politics and religion can shift your media to different places.
So I guess in your opinion, how does an international council like IC4ML best equip itself for engaging in multicultural discourse and curriculum-building? How can we best fulfill our title as “international” and bring different perspectives and also create content that is relevant to broad and diverse cultures?
I think that the best way to do it is to first try to consume some of that culture or bring in people from that culture like I am doing here to have a better understanding and to bring as many people as possible. So that’s what we are doing. We want to expand our network because you can’t see it with your own eyes. You need the eyes of another person. You need the eyes of someone who lived that experience, who’s been there in that culture, who grew in that culture. You need so many lenses, not just one. That’s the first step. I don’t think you can do it with only your vision and your worldview. You need to have people who have different worldviews come together, share their struggles, share what is the problem that they want to solve. And then, if the problems are similar then they maybe could work on them. If for example, American people have done that in an age of time, they could maybe share what they have done back in that time. So that’s what we’d need to do. But the first step, first and foremost, is to have people from different backgrounds share their problems to try and figure out a solution.
I definitely see that happening. It’s the very beginning, but it is exciting to feel like you’re part of such an important but also diverse conversation.
That’s all I have in terms of questions. Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Up until now it’s been so eye-opening. I never expected my brain to work this much, but everything is new. Everything is new: the language, the people, the culture. I just find myself happy sitting and exploring because my brain is taking in all the in-put. Everything’s been so nice and smooth so far. I feel very lucky and blessed. I want to consume as much as I can and then take my time to reorganize it in my brain and say “Wow!” And I want to give myself time to look back at it and analyze it because I think it’s a life experience. I really encourage people to go for exchange programs and internships and fellowships outside their country and outside their culture because what you see in the media is not what there is. There is a whole different world behind the screens. No one can describe it for you. No one can photograph it for you. No one can transform that life experience. The best experience you can have is to go by yourself and see yourself. It will be your own subjective experience, but it is still worth it. It’s still 100% worth it. Even scientifically your mind will start changing and you’re just trying to grasp it- you’re just trying to make sense of it and understand it. I can tell that my brain cells are smiling. They are because of all the new stuff I’ve offered to them. I’m really happy and really proud. And I encourage people to go for exchange programs. They change cultures. Even though they get uncomfortable and you get homesick and some things will not work like flights and rent and inflation. But it’s still better than consuming everything from a screen. That’s my advice: for a moment stop consuming stuff from a screen and consume it from the real world.
This is so inspiring