The responsible use of media

It’s impossible to imagine a life without media in this day and age. The media pervade all sectors of our society; they contribute to opinion building and have long since become an constant and everyday companion. People must be taught and encouraged to handle this diversity of media and content autonomously.

Only people who understand media, and are capable of deliberately selecting content and reflecting critically on it, can use media to meet their own goals and needs. Known as media literacy, this skill is very influential in determining the opportunities for education and development that are open to children, teens and adults. The acquisition of knowledge in our present society is all but inconceivable without the use of media. And even in an age of digital media, reading remains the fundamental cultural technology for acquiring knowledge.

We get involved

As a media company, we bear a special responsibility in this regard – and our actions are guided by the time-tested principle of helping people to help themselves. After all, it is in our own interest that our viewers, listeners and readers can deliberately pick and choose the content that is interesting and useful to them from our vast selection of information, entertainment and services. For this reason, Bertelsmann has for years promoted reading skills and media literacy in numerous projects with a variety of partners.

For instance, each year Bertelsmann and its corporate divisions host and participate in numerous events to celebrate “World Book Day” and Germany’s own “Reading Out Loud Day,” aimed at sparking and building a love of reading and literature among even the youngest of readers.

Random House UK in Britain pursues the same objective with its corporate volunteering program: staff members regularly read out loud to children at London’s primary schools. Gruner + Jahr, too, has for many years dedicated itself to promoting reading among children and teens. The publisher is the initiator and main sponsor of “Buchstart” in Hamburg, a long-term project launched in 2007 to promote early childhood reading skills. Gruner + Jahr also supports the Stiftung Lesen reading foundation’s nationwide project “Lesestart,” and cooperates with the Bürgerstiftung Hamburg civic foundation on several projects that promote reading and literacy among children and teens in socially disadvantaged neighborhoods. The children’s and family broadcaster Super RTL is also a member of the reading foundation, and takes advantage of its capabilities as a TV channel with vast reach and strong uptake among children to promote reading through TV commercials and campaigns.

As the publisher of Germany’s most popular children’s websites, www.toggo.de and www.toggolino.de, RTL collaborates closely with the “klicksafe.de” initiative, which promotes media literacy on the Internet and builds awareness of safety and security issues. RTL also co-founded the “Media Smart” initiative. The aim of the nonprofit initiative is to help build a self-responsible citizenry of consumers by promoting media and advertising literacy at the elementary-school level.