Submission to Ofcom consultation on Media Literacy by Design (December 2023)

This is a submission made by the Branded Content Governance Project to the UK communications regulator, Ofcom, for its consultation on Media literacy by design - Best practice principles for on-platform interventions to promote media literacy. The submission recommends that the media literacy strategy should include explicit reference to addressing the disclosure of commercial or sponsor interest in communications. The submission argues that disclosure should not be restricted to notices attached to specific content only, but form a range of required, or best practice, measures taken at different levels, from specific content, to app/service level, to owner/‘corporate’ level. Platforms, publishers and other content providers should be encouraged, and above certain resource levels required, to carry statements on how commercial/sponsored content is managed on the service overall, and include short, accessible guides to the labelling and identification of content. The submission also calls for support for ongoing research. Assessing how well disclosures are identified, understood, valued and effective across a complex, rapidly evolving media-marketing ecosystem makes this an essential and on-going area for attention in media literary research and programme design.

The submission was written by Prof Jonathan Hardy, Principal Investigator for the Branded Content Governance Project. It was submitted on 18 December 2023.