How National Education tries to be a bulwark against conspiracy

Internet illustration.

-

• After the success of the documentary 

  Hold-Up

  ,

  20 Minutes

   offers a series of articles on conspiracy and the Covid-19 pandemic.

• Since 2015, the National Education offers media education, but it is not provided everywhere and conspiracy is not always addressed.

• The training of teachers to broach the subject with their pupils is also insufficient, even though they are very much in demand.

Terrorist attacks called into question, just like the defeat of Donald Trump in the presidential election in the United States, the future vaccine against Covid-19 accused of being dangerous ... While the documentary

, which claims that the Covid-19 pandemic testifies to a vast “manipulation” of the rulers, has met with certain success,

and conspiracy theories abound at the moment.

Students are also sometimes the relay on social networks.

An attraction for conspiracy which can be explained in many ways, according to Rudy Reichstadt, director of the conspiracy observatory Conspiracy Watch: “The mistake is to believe that

know how to find reliable information on the Internet.

Many young people get information exclusively through YouTube and social networks.

And often through videos which give the first to sensationalist ideas ”.

"Conspiracy proliferates on the absence of scientific culture"

However, periods of crisis like the one we are experiencing are fertile ground for the proliferation of these conspiratorial discourse.

If the pupils are sensitive to it, it is also because of their young age: "Because conveying these theories is also the means, when one is a teenager, to find an identity and to question the word. authority ”, clarifies Rudy Reichstadt.

According to him, the level of education of certain students is also in question: “Conspiracy proliferates on the absence of scientific culture and more generally of general culture.

Because it offers a simplistic, binary and Manichean reading grid of the world ”.

National Education has not, however, remained inactive in the face of the development of this phenomenon in recent years: the former Minister of Education, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, looked into this project in 2015, after the attack on

.

And the question is addressed in the context of media education, included in the EMC programs (moral and civic education) from 2015 and in the new programs of 2018.

Too many students do not benefit from media education

"But it is clear that the awareness of students in the field is uneven from one establishment to another", insists Rudy Reichstadt.

In 2019, a study by Cnesco (National Center for the Study of School Systems) showed that media education was not generalized.

Indeed, only 52% of students in 3rd said that this subject had been mentioned in EMC during their years in college, and 56% of students in Terminale during their years in high school.

"And it is not sure that conspiracy is systematically addressed during these lessons", also underlines Marie-Pierre Gariel, member of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE), and who was rapporteur for an opinion on " The challenges of media and information literacy ”published last year.

Another concern, according to Marie-Pierre Gariel: "Teachers are not sufficiently trained in media education and are therefore not always comfortable talking about conspiracy to their students."

However, according to Marie-Caroline Missir, Executive Director of Réseau Canopé, an organization responsible for supporting teachers in their educational projects, “more and more teachers are asking to be trained in information education.

Even more since the assassination of Samuel Paty ”.

The training of teachers struggling on this subject

In 2019-2020, the Center for Media and Information Education (Clemi) trained 41,800 teachers on this topic.

A figure which could be higher "if the Clemi had more resources and if this teaching were systematized in the initial and continuing training of teachers", underlines Marie-Pierre Gariel.

Because it is imperative that they do not stigmatize students sensitive to conspiracy theories and find the right approach to talk to them about it: “We must not refute their arguments en bloc.

But rather teaching them to deconstruct the staging of these videos: the tone, the voice, the music are often the same.

By studying this dramaturgy, they will understand for themselves the mechanics that are involved and gain distance, ”says Sébastien Rochat, training manager at Clémi.

School Press and Media Week is also an opportunity to tackle conspiracy theories, which is still too infrequently the case.

However, it has increased in recent years: "We have gone from 15,000 to 18,000 participating establishments between 2016 and 2020", notes Marie-Caroline Missir.

But some students get through.

"We should therefore systematize it and also ensure that it is not reduced to the study of the press, but that it also addresses information and disinformation on the Internet," insists Marie-Pierre Gariel.

All the more so as it allows students to take part in interesting initiatives: "Like the mediatikx competition, which invites students to create their own media and to appropriate the right reflexes: finding the source of information, prioritizing news, present them rigorously.

Or like the Déclic'Critique workshop, during which the students dissect, for example, a YouTube video to analyze it, image by image, in order to disentangle the true from the false, unmask a hidden advertisement… ”, indicates Sébastien Rochat.

Should media education be sanctuary?

Some want to go even further.

In a column published on November 12 in

, a group of journalists claims to "sanctify media and information education (EMI)

.

According to them, it is "today part of the programs, but no hour is specifically devoted to it", a "fundamental point if we want all students to benefit from it".

Make MIL a subject in its own right, a suggestion on which Jean-Michel Blanquer did not speak, even if he declared his wish to strengthen moral and civic education, and therefore potentially MIL.

Finally, according to Rudy Reichstadt, strengthening the educational level of students is essential to fight against the proliferation of conspiracy: “A solid historical and literary knowledge functions as an antibody against conspiracy.

They must also be taught methodical doubt, ”he insists.

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• 20 minutes video

• Covid 19

• Education

• Coronavirus

• Conspiracy theory

• Society