Digital Media Skills for Inclusion

New media is a powerful force in forming our perception of reality. The recent technological developments have brought profound changes to the way we access and consume news. Today almost everybody is connected to the Internet and can post information, pictures, videos and comments which can go viral. This means that they can potentially reach millions of people around the world and influence their attitude to a given issue. The digital revolution can empower but this power comes with big responsibility. In various parts of Europe and neighbouring countries young people face different challenges related to media literacy, i.e. exposure to media bias, hate speech, cyberbullying, grassroots xenophobia propagated by media and social networks. How to stay informed but to avoid misinformation? How to distinguish between reliable information and various forms of propaganda? How to confront and counter hate speech online?

We would like to carry out this project to empower youth workers and youth activists to become conscious media and news consumers, to apply their critical thinking skills and to contribute to more inclusive and tolerant societies through non-formal education methods like debates, role play games, open discussions, working in small groups, etc.

Objectives

• to understand how and why media content is produced

• to make distinctions between different types of media content (news journalism, propaganda, promotion, entertainment, etc.);

• to explore the crucial elements of a reliable journalist’s craft (balance, reliability, usage of proper sources);

• to learn to evaluate the reliability of sources and to approach any information critically;

• to explore the interrelation between media messages and tolerance/intolerance in our societies;

• to learn how to distinguish between media and audience bias;

• to promote the core EU values and cooperation under the Erasmus+ programme.

Our short-term goals are to develop critical thinking skills of youth workers and youth leaders, to increase their awareness about importance of responsible media consumption and to empower them to avoid stigmatising messages in the new media. We also envisage to develop strategies, materials and guidelines which can be later used for basic media literacy training for young people. Our long-term goals are to initiate positive changes in participating countries by decreasing the level of hate speech, racism and xenophobia, particularly propagated by social media networks and improve the quality of inclusive digital youth work.