News and media literacy resource book in Dzongkha and Braille

Pema Seldon Tshering, Paro Aug 10, 2019

The Bhutan Centre for Media and Democracy (BCMD) released a News and Media Literacy Resource Book in Dzongkha and Braille in Paro yesterday. This will enable non-English speaking sections of society and persons with disabilities to develop critical thinking and judge information and news against a backdrop of the proliferation of fake news and misinformation, 

According to BCMD, the resource book will help the users recognise bias, misinformation and lies and help them to understand the complex messages provided by television, internet and all other forms of media.

“In this resource, we used a lot of local case studies, for instance, not accepting friend requests from people that you don’t know. A year or so back it came out in the newspaper that after a girl and a boy met over social media, two of them decided to meet and then, in the end, the girl lost her life. So I think we really need to teach our youth and even adults to be more cautious and to be savvier in terms of using media.”

She added, after learning the threats of social media and news, the department decided that it is important to bring every citizen on board and take the media literacy to the unreached.

“We realised in a democracy we need to be inclusive, we need to bring everybody on board. There are people who live with disabilities, they have different abilities so we need to make all the information accessible to all citizens regardless of their disabilities.”

The resource book, Mikhung Sheyyen will be distributed to remote communities, Dratshang and Sheydras, the Braille Media Literacy will be sent out to schools and institutes for the visually impaired.

Source: BBS