As the Review has highlighted, the ability for young people to identify and challenge mis and disinformation is an increasing concern amongst parents, teachers and young people themselves. We agree with the Review that building media literacy and the skills for young people to critically engage with and assess information from a range of sources is increasingly important. We will therefore adopt the Review’s recommendations to strengthen media literacy through English, to enable young people to critically engage with the messages they encounter through different media channels, and to better specify media literacy within both the primary and secondary citizenship curricula. We will reform the English programme of study and the English language GCSE so that students learn to spot emotive language and study a range of transient texts. We will also go further and strengthen the critical understanding of evidence and sources inherent in history through the refreshed programme of study.

(P.25 government response to CAR)

History will play a role in the development of pupils’ digital and media literacy through the transference of skills that are learned through the critical analysis of historical sources as well as through the study and critical evaluation of digitised historical research such as databases, records and other digitised historical sources. Below you can find some of our articles, guides, webinars and resources related to digital and media literacy to support you in your planning.

Webinar series: Historical thinking in a digital world: how history builds digital and media literacy – This brand new webinar series will cover the important relationship between history and digital/media literacy in the modern age of AI, digitised resources and misinformation. The first webinar in the series will be free for HA members.

Stories, sources and new formats: Digitising Archives – In this 2016 article Ben Walsh and Andrew Payne attempt to survey the broad landscape of the scale and impact of digitisation and assess how the digital landscape has affected the historical landscape. Digitisation and technology have created amazing new opportunities for the study of history, but also some dangers.

Blog off! Refreshing the public history blog – In this 2024 article, David Geiringer explores the power of the blog as a means of communicating history.

The Bibliography of British and Irish History – The Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH) is the most extensive guide available to published writing on British and Irish history. 

Academic Critical Thinking, Research Literacy and Undergraduate History – This 2017 IJHTL article explores the importance of critical thinking in the modern world and in modern historical research

Challenges to archives in the digital age – This 2011 piece from Dr. Nick Barratt was at the forefront of some of the early challenges presented by the development of digital archives.

Past Forward: Interpretations of History – This prophetic 2003 article demonstrates concerns about the need for critical thinking in the use of the internet. Has much changed?

Teaching History 33 – This 1982 edition of Teaching history explores the concept of computing as “artificial intelligence” and how the use of the computer was perceived by history teachers back in 1982!

Move Me On: trainee is using AI indiscriminately to try to save time – In this 2025 Move Me On feature, mentors are supported to have conversations with trainees or ECTs who are using AI uncritically to save time.

Using Large Learning Models in the History Classroom: practical perspectives – This 2025 article explores how two universities have experimented with the use of LLMs with students.  

Recorded webinar: Windows into the past: better use of clips in the history classroom – In this 2025 webinar, Hugh Richards and the ERA (Education Recording Agency) explores how ERAs large bank of media clips can be utilised in the history classroom.