Key source: Nordic Media Literacy Survey (TemaNord 2025:572) 

The Nordic Media Literacy Survey maps how adults and young people across Nordic countries understand traditional and digital media’s role in democratic societies, their ability to critically assess content, and their confidence in navigating a complex digital landscape. The survey includes national perspectives on media literacy needs and progress. Below are some key takeaways, including country-specific insights on Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden.

Overall, Nordic societies share strong democratic media traditions—high press freedom, robust public service media, and comparatively high digital skills—but face common and country-specific challenges with social media credibility, misinformation, AI in media, and generational differences in use and trust. This brief outlines those findings and offers actionable policy recommendations to strengthen digital information literacy (DIL) as a cornerstone of democratic resilience.

The Nordic media landscape: insights for digital information literacy (DIL) 

The Nordic Media Literacy Survey evaluates adults’ and young people’s understanding of media and social media in democratic contexts, how they evaluate content, their responsible use of digital services, and attitudes toward AI in media.

Democracy and trust

• Legacy news media are widely seen as essential to democracy, with majorities across the Nordic countries viewing TV news and, to a lesser extent, daily newspapers as credible, fair, and supportive of freedom of speech and democratic processes. 
• Trust in these media is strongly linked to age, with older groups expressing higher confidence in their credibility and societal role, while younger groups are more ambivalent but rarely openly distrustful. 
• Social media are primarily valued as platforms for free expression and diverse opinions, but are generally perceived as less credible and less fair, especially by older users, whereas younger users are more positive. 
• Overall, the democratic functions of professional journalism—informing citizens, scrutinising power, and enabling informed choices—are broadly recognized and highly valued, with perceived importance increasing significantly with age.
  

Media and social media accountability

• Survey respondents across the Nordic countries generally show a solid understanding of media financing and accountability, with majorities correctly recognizing that public service media are tax-funded, commercial media and platforms like Facebook are ad-funded, and that major news outlets have an editor-in-chief responsible for content. 
• However, misconceptions persist, particularly among young adults: about one in four aged 25–34 believes that Facebook has an editor-in-chief or a public service mandate, a misunderstanding that declines with age. 
• Most respondents are aware of journalistic ethical principles such as factual accuracy, fair treatment, and privacy protection, suggesting a broad understanding of professional journalism that likely influences content evaluation. 
• Awareness of social media users’ rights is more uneven: while a majority know they can report rule-breaking content and around one third have done so, nearly as many are unaware of this option, and both awareness and use of these rights decrease with age.

User responsibility and self-efficacy regarding information disorders

• Across the Nordic countries, respondents express a strong sense of personal responsibility for lawful and respectful online behaviour, including complying with regulations and seeking consent before sharing images of others, although agreement is somewhat lower among younger adults. 
• Security and privacy practices are widespread but vary by age and country, with blocking users and deleting browser history being most common, while reporting inappropriate content is less frequent, though still undertaken by about one in four respondents. 
• Use of safety and privacy measures declines with age, as younger adults are generally more active in actions such as changing privacy settings, deleting accounts, and reporting unsuitable content. 
• When encountering suspected false information, most respondents rely on verification strategies such as comparing with trusted news sources, searching for additional information, and checking website credibility, with younger respondents more likely than older ones to take active steps and seek advice from trusted others.
• Fear of online harassment significantly constrains participation, with around four in ten respondents avoiding posting or commenting at least monthly and more than one in ten doing so daily. Clear age patterns emerge in digital use and confidence: older adults use most online services far less than younger people, especially for activities such as online buying and selling or creating meeting invitations, although overall confidence in basic online skills is high across groups. 
• Respondents generally feel capable of finding and evaluating information and assessing news credibility, yet many are sceptical about the quality of information from the social media accounts they follow, with only a third believing these provide good information. 
• Verification habits and confidence vary by age, as both the youngest and oldest groups are less likely to check multiple sources and feel less confident in evaluating trustworthiness, while younger respondents tend to trust online sources more. 
• At the same time, younger people report greater difficulty keeping up with news, whereas older respondents find it easier to stay informed.

The above findings on media echo the NORDIS research of 2023 on disinformation media trust, power and accountability (Horowitz et al. 2023).

AI attitudes

• AI use is widespread in the Nordic countries but strongly age-dependent, with nearly half of the population having used an AI service recently, rising to almost three-quarters among the youngest group and falling to less than one-fifth among the oldest. 
• The most common use of AI is for finding information, indicating that AI tools are increasingly replacing traditional search methods, followed by assistance with writing tasks. 
• Despite this uptake, most respondents express significant concern about AI’s rapid development, its impact on media content, and its potential to make it harder to distinguish true from false information, while only a small minority see AI as accurate, trustworthy, or clearly beneficial for democracy. 
• Younger respondents are more likely to recognize both the positive and negative aspects of AI, whereas older adults are more likely to report uncertainty or no opinion. Recent AI users tend to view AI more favorably as a practical tool, but both users and non-users share similar levels of concern about its broader societal and democratic implications.

Country-specific insights

Denmark

The Danish perspective emphasises enhancing population-wide safety and resilience in media consumption:

• High overall media exposure and digital connectivity.
• Danish educational and civil society actors prioritise safe use of digital platforms, including ethical and critical reflection on information quality.
  

Finland

Finland frames media literacy as a means to empower individuals to engage with information critically and confidently.

• Finland ranks at the top of European media literacy indexes, reflecting strong national performance in digital and media competencies.
• The longstanding integration of media literacy into national education frameworks supports a deep understanding of how content is produced and regulated.
• Emphasis on teaching critical assessment and reflective use of media that prepares citizens for democratic participation and resilience to misinformation.
  

Norway

Norway views the survey results as support for continued and sustained media literacy work across society.

• Strong media trust and high levels of journalism professionalism support public confidence.
• Norway performs well in international comparisons but still faces gaps in individual critical evaluation skills relative to overall media consumption trends.
• Digital media use remains high across age groups, making robust literacy competencies essential.
  

Sweden

Sweden emphasises the importance of continuously updating competencies to keep pace with changing media ecosystems.

• Sweden’s comprehensive media research infrastructure (e.g., annual Media Barometer) provides rich data on evolving media use and trends.
• Digital media, especially social platforms, now surpass traditional media in daily reach, shaping the way citizens interact with information.
• Emerging issues, such as podcasts and new formats, require updated literacy frameworks.
  

Shared challenges

Despite strong democratic media cultures, Nordic societies face common obstacles:

1. Misinformation and trust: Social media present ongoing challenges for distinguishing reliable from unreliable information.
2. Algorithmic influences: AI and platform algorithms shape information exposure in ways that citizens often do not fully understand.
3. Generational differences: Younger people are more digitally active but may lack critical evaluation skills; older adults may trust traditional media but be less engaged with digital literacy training.
4. Skills disparities: Competence levels vary across age and socioeconomic groups (note the importance of potential NORDIS collaboration with the Nordic digital inclusion network).