CURRENT TENDENCIES FORDEVELOPING MEDIA LITERACY IN FLANDERS (BELGIUM)

Introduction. In the modern world of digi-tal technologies media literacy has become theimportanttopic of the discussions of politicians in many countries while they are discussing media in general and digital media or the Internet in particular. Taking into account the tendency to European Union which distinguishes our country and for the successful development of media literacy in it, it could be useful to know about the peculiar-ities of the development of this strategy in other European countries and to analyze their achievements and draw-backs. The country of our interest is Belgium which is located in the heart of Europe and concentrate many common features of European politics. The purpose of the article is to analyze the tendencies of introducing media literacy into educational strategies of Flanders (Belgium) and reveal the expediencyof the use of Flanders experience while regulating the educational system of Ukraine.The methods of analysis, synthesis and comparisonare used in the article.Results.Considering the debates in Flemish govern-ment directed towards choosing the best way of imple-menting the media literacy policies, it can be stated that first attempts were made after the dramatic development of the digital technologies. Digital media became more commonly used by citizens of different age and social status, so the issue of protecting them from different nega-tive effects of media, that is, fake news, brutality etc. should fit to a new reality. The instrument of such protec-tion would be media literacy instead of restrictive measures of the government, the latter being considered an ineffective policy. Shifting the responsibility to consum-ers became a goodpractice, but under the condition that they are provided with necessary skills which are of a much wider range that digital skills/ Moreover, media literacy should necessarily include the skills in construct-ing media connecting knowledge of media background and its practical implementation via creating new media products and so understanding their artificial nature.Originality. This research has been done for the first time with the use of original literature sources. Conclusion.Having analyzed different tendencies in policies of implementing media literacy in Flanders (Bel-gium) the author can conclude that during last decades there has been a considerable shift in attitude to media literacy there. Having noticed, that restrictive measures directed to protect consumers from negative influence of media (fake news, violence, addiction etc.) did not act properly because of drastic changes of the media envi-ronment. It became more and more digitalized, and con-sumers have been included in the processes of its crea-tion. It meant that new approaches should be developed giving consumers knowledge and skills which could pro-tect them instead of law. The discussion on the issue are still taking place on the ministry level in Flanders, be-cause restrictive laws are easier to be voted, but making media literacy a part and parcel of a society culture pro-vides more self-confidence and responsibility to the citi-zens of a democratic state. This experience can be quite useful for choosing the correct way of the development and introduction of media literacy in Ukraine.