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Thomas Matzek, ORF Education, Science and Current Affairs Digitisation makes education possible for all
Digitisation is more than just a buzzword - it offers completely new possibilities for education. Our audience is no longer just those who have a TV set or a radio set, but ultimately everyone who has internet access, whether on a PC or a mobile phone. This allows us to offer educational content to more people in Austria - and to reach new audiences. The ORF is thus becoming more than ever a "broadcast" of society.

In the age of fake news and conspiracy theories, journalistically assured content that provides orientation is a competitive advantage. The focus is more than ever on the well-researched story. Digitalisation makes it possible to prepare its content in the most diverse ways for the most diverse target groups. Multimedia topic management is both an opportunity and a challenge.

Let's take an example of science reporting - the topic of biodiversity. What is conveyed in a documentary of 45 minutes on a large screen in high-resolution, detailed images does not necessarily work for users who call up their information on a smartphone display while travelling in the underground. Clips of the same material, short, striking units of meaning will work better here - designed according to the logic of already successful platforms. This means versioning will become a core task of a multimedia ORF science department.

How educational content can work with the logic of digital natives is shown by the platform Edutube, which was set up during the Corona crisis to support home-schooling. There are almost 1000 contributions in eight categories - from politics/Europe to people/culture to media/digital - most of which are five-minute contributions produced exclusively for the platform. These are linked to each other by tags and algorithms. This means that if you look at a contribution about Emperor Maximilian, the platform will make suggestions that match the content, just like contributions about other Habsburg rulers. The more the platform is used, the more the offers are geared to personal preferences - as with commercial platforms - with the difference that the content is journalistically quality-assured and the aim of the platform is to promote curiosity about knowledge.

Completely new perspectives are also made possible by 3D tours. Here, locations are filmed using proprietary techniques and linked digitally with additional information and content. During the virtual tour of the Carnuntum amphitheatre, for example, you can click on an information point to call up an animated reconstruction of the building, or a video of a gladiatorial fight that took place here, or an interview with scientists. Digitalisation makes it possible to impart education and knowledge in a completely new way. This is invaluable, not only in times of Corona.

But digitisation also requires social and ecological responsibility. The skills to use the new tools are not yet equally distributed in society. Those who know how to use them will soon have an enormous competitive advantage. Those who cannot use the opportunities run the risk of becoming "modernisation losers". Thus, one of the essential tasks for the ORF will be to promote digital competence.
In view of the high energy consumption of data processing, storage, streaming or more and more high-resolution screens, the question of sustainability also arises for a "broadcasting of society". If, on the one hand, we restrict mobility in order to reduce individual CO2 emissions, digitalisation must not be allowed to undo this progress. In the concepts of the European Union, the digitalisation offensive is therefore already linked to the provision of "green" energy, part of a Green Deal. This could also be a model for the digital education offensive at the ORF. In any case, digitalisation means - thinking anew!