This submission to the Australian Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters’ inquiry into civics education, engagement, and participation in Australia outlines prevailing approaches to countering information pollution, summarises the information literacy methods for schools developed at the University of Canberra since 2021, and makes three key recommendations.

In line with the Susan McKinnon Foundation's commitment to strengthening Australia’s democracy, this submission identifies 14 evidence-based areas to strengthen and enhance civic education, and to tackle additional underlying issues threatening civic engagement, such as promoting a healthy information ecosystem.

How politicians talk about and news media report on Australia’s democracy affects how people think about, feel towards, and engage with democracy in their day-to-day lives. This report presents the findings of a quantitative analysis of discourses around democracy in parliamentary speeches and news media articles in Australia.

Studies suggest that a significant number of adults aged 55 years and older are online and that they may be particularly vulnerable to the impacts of false and misleading information. To explore this topic, the authors of this report conducted a survey of nearly 1,000 adults aged 55 years and older from across the United...

This report finds that there is increasing awareness of digital threats to democracy, and less complacency about online harms. There is also greater buy-in for deliberative democracy principles among both the general public and elected decision-makers.