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1. National strategy

2. Media literacy and online safety through formal education

3. Promoting media literacy and online safety through non-formal and informal learning

4. Raising awareness about the risks posed by new media

National strategy

The first framework for the development of media literacy is the Organic Law of Education (Ley Orgánica de Educación, LOE), since much of the contents in the subject are included in the training curricula and are also present in the definition of the different basic competencies.

Subsequently, the LOMCE points out ICT (information and communication technologies) as one of the areas in which special impact is made, with a view to the transformation of the educational system, expressly introducing media literacy in different parts of the article. The law includes among its principles, the importance of educating, through the educational system, the families and other institutions involved, autonomous people, critics, officials and with own thought in the current society marked by the emergence of the ICT and all that it entails in relation to learning.

These actions are also included in the new educational law LOMLOE approved in November 2020, specially after the 2020 events related to the emergence of the SARS-COv-2 virus have shown the importance of ICT for the economy and education.  In 2020, Educa en digital, an initiative formalized through the signing of a framework agreement, signed on 29 June 2020, was launched. This initiative arose from the changes brought about by the Covid-19, which made formal education a great change. Funding for this programme amounts to a total of €237 million, and the duration of the agreement is 4 years, until 2024. This plan has 4 axes:

1. Provision of devices and connectivity.

2. Provision of digital educational resources: applications and content.

3. Training and digital teaching skills.

4. Application of AI to personalized education.

Following the adoption of LOMLOE, the 2025 digital strategy is established, which seeks a set of digital strategies to achieve equity in access to and knowledge of technology in civil society. There are several measures:

1. Ensure digital connectivity for 100% of the population, seeking to bridge the digital divide between rural and urban areas.

2. To keep on leading Europe as for technology 5G.

3. Strengthen digital skills and cybersecurity in citizens.

4. Promoting the digitisation of public administrations

5. Accelerate the digitisation of enterprises and productive models.

6. Guarantee citizens' rights around the digital space.

Following the entry into force by Royal Decree 243/2022 of 5 April, establishing the ordination and minimum education of the Baccalaureate, electronic literacy, media literacy and innovative learning environments have been introduced. In turn, there is also a Bachelor's degree in science and technology.

In September 2015, the White Book was presented for the design of University qualifications within the framework of the digital economy (Libro Blanco para el diseño de las titulaciones universitarias en el marco de la Economía Digital), developed by four different ministerial departments (Economy, Industry, Employment, and Education) with experts from the University sphere and the digital industry. The book establishes 41 professional profiles linked to the demand of specialists in the field of digital economy by companies, and performs an analysis of the supply and demand for training, serving as a guide for public and private universities to generate more professional career qualifications.

The Information Literacy Working Group (Grupo de Trabajo de Alfabetización Informacional)

,has developed the ALFIN/AMI Skills Integration Report in the education system: references, context and proposals (Integración de las competencias ALFIN/AMI en el sistema educativo: referencias, contexto y propuestas), in analysing the introduction of media literacy issues in the education system and proposes a Decalogue of urgent measures for literacy in media and information and its implementation in centres and classrooms. The National Institute of Educational Technologies and teacher training (Instituto Nacional de Tecnologías Educativas y de Formación del Profesorado (INTEF)) is the principle manager for introducing new technologies into the field of education. To improve the quality of education and integrate students and professors into the information society, it deals with the incorporation of technologies into the classrooms. The National Center for Curricular Development in free softwares (CEDEC) is also in charge of “drafting, elaborating, developing, cataloging and monitoring free digital content, which is targeted at specific educational collectives, that develop the curriculum of the education system”.

In 2022, the SEPE, together with the European Commission, launched the Digital Literacy project for women recruited under the Agriculture Employment Promotion Plan (PROFEA), is part of investment 3 "Digital Skills for Employment" of Component 19 "National Digital Skills Plan," to ensure the acquisition of advanced digital skills that improve their employability. This project aims to address the digital differences within Spanish society, especially in rural settings.

Media literacy and online safety through formal education

The INTEF, in collaboration with the Autonomous Regions, has developed the Digital Culture Plan in Schools (Plan Digital de Centro 2022-2024) with different projects. INTEF also holds training aimed at the faculty in Teaching Digital Competence (Competencia Digital Docente), understanding that developing digital competence in the educational system requires teachers to have the necessary training in that competence. In this sense, the Common Framework for Teaching Digital Competence (Marco Común de Competencia Digital Docente 2022) has been developed. Finally, the Framework Agreement on School Connectivity (Convenio Marco de Conectividad Escolar), is another important initiative for the inclusion of ICT in the education system. INTEF has multiple initiatives around digital training, one of its projects is the classroom of the future which seeks to explore the methodological possibilities given by the use of technology to improve educational quality. It has been implemented in many Spanish autonomous communities.

The Multi-Literacies Project (Proyecto Alfabetizaciones Múltiples), considers multi-literacy as an essential competency for life, empowering citizens to develop capacities for reflection, oral expression, critical thinking, and guarantees them full participation in digital society and knowledge. The Autonomous Regions also implement educational programs and media literacy projects, such as the educational technological platform EducaMadrid. In the promotion of safe use of digital technologies, there are public-private collaboration initiatives such as the EducaInternet platform, aimed at students and teachers and promoted by the Office for Education, Youth and Sport of the Community of Madrid (Consejería de Educación, Juventud y deporte de la Comunidad de Madrid), the national public entity Red.es for digital transformation, and a private entity.

Promoting media literacy and online safety through non-formal and informal learning

The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism (Ministerio de Industria, Comercio y Turismo launched, in 2014, the Activate Programme (Programa Actívate), result of an agreement with Red.es, public entity dependent of the Ministry, together with the private initiative, for the training of young people in competencies that facilitate their employability. This online platform has three main foundations: first of all, formation through the offer of online courses in digital competences; secondly, the promotion of job seeking through an adequate CV or professional networking; and finally thepromotion of entrepreneurship by facilitating tools to evaluate an idea for a new business or proving your managing skills.

More recently, in September 2017, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation (Ministerio de Asuntos Económicos y Transformación Digital), through the Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligen (Secretaria de Estado de Digitalización e Inteligencia Artificial) signed an agreement-framework for public-private collaboration with Red. Es and The National Institute of Cybersecurity of Spain (Instituto Nacional de Ciberseguridad de España (INCIBE)), for the fulfillment of digital training actions and of training professionals in information technologies and digital economy[6]. The INCIBE will count with a budget of 23.2M in 2018.

In 2021, the National Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan was established by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation. The plan is designed to recover a solid, inclusive and strong economy. It is structured in 4 transversal axes:

• A green Spain
• A digital Spain
• A Spain without gender gaps
• A cohesive and inclusive Spain

Among the actions it wants to do are digitalisation of public administration (An administration for the 21st century), modernisation of businesses, especially SMEs, promoting knowledge education and training for technological competence. Modernization of the tax system to prevent fraud and to adapt the tax system.

Raising awareness about the risks posed by new media

The Chaval.es Programme the network (Programa Chaval.es en la Red) of the entity Red.es, informs, through educational and entertainment content, of the dangers which young people are exposed to in the digital medium, involving the parents in the awareness process. The program in cooperation with INCIBE and includes channels or hotlines for reporting cases of cyberbullying, grooming, sexting, and threats or hate crimes. With a similar content, but aimed at the hazards for kids, Safe Internet for Kids (Internet Segura for Kids (IS4K) has the goal of promoting a safe and responsible use of the Internet by teenagers.

The Project You decide on the Internet (Proyecto Tú decides en Internet), of the Spanish Agency for Data Protection (Agencia Española de Protección de Datos), is intended for young people and their parents and teachers to raise awareness about the importance of making good use of the Internet. It offers tools, teaching materials and information and guidance for parents and teachers on how to prevent dangers on the Internet without depriving young people of the potential of digital media. For its part, the Screen Friends Initiative (Iniciativa Pantallas Amigas) promotes the safe use of new technologies in childhood and adolescence, with information activities and awareness about the inherent dangers in the digital environment. They put awareness and prevention campaigns in place in collaboration with multiple public institutions (en colaboración con múltiples instituciones públicas), between the national Administration, Universities, municipalities and Autonomous Communities. The Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (Ministerio de Educación y Formación Profesional), through its portal of School Coexistence (Convivencia Escolar), it offers a list of links of interest related to cyber-bullying (enlaces de interés relacionados con el ciberacoso).

In the area of the Autonomous Regions we find initiatives such as the programme to use cyber- bullying prevention and safe use of ICT (Programa Laguntza programa contra el acoso y ciberacoso), which aims to be a tool to help teachers and the rest of the educational community to know how to prevent and act against cases of Cyber-bullying among the students.

Educational institutions also innovate with initiatives such as the MyBullying tool, an instrument developed by the Complutense University of Madrid (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) for the detention of bullying.

In 2021 the State R&D&I Program Aimed at the Challenges of the Society "Proof of Concept" (Proyecto I+D+i «Prueba de Concepto» 2021: La dimensión moral como clave para la comprensión y prevención del acoso escolar y ciberacoso) was carried out, this was a program carried out by Eva María Romera Félix in which it delves into bullying and covers the different forms of prevention. It is key when it comes to preventing violence to have a good knowledge about your keys to be able to deal with it.

The Spanish Association for the Prevention of School Harassment (A.E.P.A.E.) is a non-governmental non-profit organization. Formed by different professionals and civil society actors: psychologists, social educators, parents of victims of school harassment, etc. This association has created a national plan against school harassment, which is not in place. They also have protocols of action regarding bullying, have incident tests and multiple tools to deal with this complex situation. On April 30, 2022, they began their first School Harassment Days, which were conducted online.

1. See inspiring principles of the law in its preamble, third principle concerning the "development of skills necessary for the knowledge society, ensuring access for all to information and communication technologies", p. 7.

2. "Information and Communication Technologies will also be a key tool in the training of teachers and in the learning of citizens throughout life, by enabling them to reconcile training with personal or work obligations and, they will also be in the process management." LOMCE, Preamble, XI.

3. Art. 6 bis on Distribution of competencies; Art. 24 on the organization of the first cycle of Compulsory Secondary Education; Art. 25 about fourth-year organization of CSE; Art. 34 bis on the organization of first and second baccalaureate courses; and art. 111 BIS on ICT.

4. Joint Working Group attached to all Technical Cooperation commissions.

5. Developed within the Teaching Digital Competence Conference coordinated by INTEF, it describes in a standardized manner the digital competence of teachers in 5 areas (Information and Information Literacy, Communication and Collaboration, Creation of Digital Content, Security and Troubleshooting), 21 competencies and 6 comptence levels (A1 – C2). It is based on the DigComp Framework 2.0 Digital Competence for Citizenship, in relation to the Digital Agenda 2020.
6. See press release of former MINETAD. (Nota de Prensa MINETAD).