Fake News – Dissolving Superstitions with Media Literacy – WS 10 2021

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30 June 2021 | 10:30-11:30 CEST | Studio Belgrade | Video recording | Transcript
Consolidated programme 2021 overview / Day 2

Proposals: #1 #35 #37 #58 #68

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Session teaser

Workshop 10 on Media Literacy and Digital Skills discusses the innermost line of defense that people rely on to protect their digital daily life from disinformation and deceit. Critical thinking and practical digital skills go hand in hand, and they need to be nurtured at all stages of life.

Session description

The pandemic period made very visible, that many citizens are not able to receive needed knowledge via the internet, the lack of access to the networks, lack of professional training to develop digital teaching skills make it difficult for children and teachers to deliver lessons from distance. Network access and new digital skills is the most needed subject in the region.

Media literacy and critical thinking are the best tools to avoid misinformation and to implement real effective, preventive methods in a brief period of time. Health is a basic human right and media literacy is very connected to human rights issues. The lockdown process made it clear, that traditional methods of business are not always working, and not everybody has relevant digital skills to develop their educational or business organizations on daily basis per the Internet.

Media literacy and critical thinking are important tools to overcome superstitions spread by fake news. This dark period of pandemics shows many facets of literacy problems, but some of them, especially, conspiracy theories about vaccines, health news and political news about countries need more awareness.

Topics of the Key speakers are about some new methods to solve the abovementioned questions:

  • Tamar Kintsurashvili:
Discover truth yourself!
is a slogan of MDF’s media literacy program which applies the learning by doing approach. The program developed in partnership with the Deutsche Welle Akademie is aimed at strengthening critical thinking, conscious media consumption, and building the resilience of youth against disinformation, misinformation, and fake news. The program is a good combination of theory and practice, which includes intensive weekly training on OSINET and internship at fact-checking platform www.mythdetector.ge. This method allows the program participants to exercise obtained knowledge in practice. The overall goal of the project is to equip young people as amplifiers of information with the necessary skills to differentiate quality media content from fabricated ones. 
  • Tessa Jolls: 
Truth and Consequences
“We see things not as they are, but as we are,” H.M. Tomlinson said. In this session, we will explore the differences between the objective truth and the poetic truth, and how we make meaning from the many media messages we engage with. The questions of what truth is, how we verify it and how we experience it has never been more important, nor are the consequential efforts to suppress the truth and influence other people’s perceptions of truth. Media literacy for building resilient populations is essential!
Eurodig 2021 may foster the collaboration process and exchange of ideas of the best experts, students and society members to find new solutions and joint basis for the future projects.
  • Sofia Rasgado
Centro Internet Segura

Format

Until 20 May 2021.

Please try out new interactive formats. EuroDIG is about dialogue not about statements, presentations and speeches. Workshops should not be organised as a small plenary.

Further reading

Links to relevant websites, declarations, books, documents. Please note we cannot offer web space, so only links to external resources are possible. Example for an external link: Main page of EuroDIG

https://faktabaari.fi/assets/FactBar_EDU_Fact-checking_for_educators_and_future_voters_13112018.pdf

People

Please provide name and institution for all people you list here.

Focal Point Focal Points take over the responsibility and lead of the session organisation. They work in close cooperation with the respective Subject Matter Expert (SME) and the EuroDIG Secretariat and are kindly requested to follow EuroDIG’s session principles

  • Maia Simonishvili, National Parliamentary Library of Georgia
  • Sabrina Vorbau, European Schoolnet

Organising Team (Org Team) List Org Team members here as they sign up.

Subject Matter Expert (SME)

  • Yrjö Länsipuro

The Org Team is a group of people shaping the session. Org Teams are open and every interested individual can become a member by subscribing to the mailing list.

  • Valensiya Dresvyannikova
  • Sabrina Vorbau, European Schoolnet
  • Vlad Ivanets
  • Amali De Silva-Mitchell, Dynamic Coalition on Data Driven Health Technologies / Futurist
  • Oliana Sula
  • Juuso Järviniemi, Student at College of Europe, Federal Committee member of the Young European Federalists (JEF-Europe)
  • Giacomo Mazzone, Eurovisioni
  • Maia Simonishvili, National Parliamentary Library of Georgia

Key Participants

Tessa Jolls’ primary focus is working in partnership to demonstrate how media literacy works through school and community-based implementation programs. She actively contributes to the development of the media literacy field internationally through her speaking, writing, and consulting, with curriculum development and research projects, and through publishing and disseminating new curricular and training materials.
Jolls currently serves as a Fulbright Program Specialist in media literacy education; her term extends until 2022. In 2015, Jolls received the Global Media and Information Literacy Award in recognition of her work in Media and Information Literacy and Intercultural Dialogue, from the UNESCO-initiated Global Alliance for Partnerships on Media and Information Literacy (GAPMIL), in cooperation with the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC). In 2014, Jolls was honored with the International Media Literacy Award by Gateway Media Literacy Partners; in 2013, she was recognized with the Jesse McCanse Award for Individual Contributions in Media Literacy by the National Telemedia Council.
  • Sofia Rasgado, Development and Innovation Department of the Portuguese Cybersecurity Centre of the Portuguese Cybersecurity Centre
Sofia Rasgado has a degree in Sociology and completed her master’s degree in Public Health in 2010 at the School of Public Health of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa. She is currently working in the Development and Innovation Department of the Portuguese Cybersecurity Centre, being responsible for the executive and operational coordination of the Safer Internet Centre, a project co-funded by the European Commission, a role she has performed since 2015. During the last years, she has ensured participation and representation in several national and European committees and working groups, highlighting the European Network of Safer Internet Centres – INSAFE, IGF – Internet Governance Forum, EuroDIG – European Dialogue on Internet Governance, OECD – Expert Group, Evaluation Committee of the No Hate Speech Movement and an expert in the Drafting Group of Specialists on Children in the Digital Environment, which was responsible for the drafting of the proposal for a Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers to the Member States on the guidelines to respect, protect and fulfil the rights of the child in the digital environment, the latter two by the Council of Europe.
  • Amalia Oganjanyan
Amalia Oganjanyan is an experienced journalist, MIL expert, and project manager at Deutsche Welle (projects in Georgia, Ukraine, and Central Asia).

Moderator

  • Maia Simonishvili, National Parliamentary Library of Georgia

The moderator is the facilitator of the session at the event. Moderators are responsible for including the audience and encouraging a lively interaction among all session attendants. Please make sure the moderator takes a neutral role and can balance between all speakers. Please provide short CV of the moderator of your session at the Wiki or link to another source.

Remote Moderator

Trained remote moderators will be assigned on the spot by the EuroDIG secretariat to each session.

Reporter

Reporters will be assigned by the EuroDIG secretariat in cooperation with the Geneva Internet Platform. The Reporter takes notes during the session and formulates 3 (max. 5) bullet points at the end of each session that:

  • are summarised on a slide and presented to the audience at the end of each session
  • relate to the particular session and to European Internet governance policy
  • are forward looking and propose goals and activities that can be initiated after EuroDIG (recommendations)
  • are in (rough) consensus with the audience

Current discussion, conference calls, schedules and minutes

Messages

  • Manipulation of media sources whether in the form of disinformation or misinformation can fuel violent conflict.
  • One crucial aspect of media literacy is to educate an audience that in most cases determines the context of a message through the lens of all kinds of prior information, including knowledge, experience, and attitudes.
  • Youth need a deeper understanding and knowledge of media literacy to be able to discern the accuracy of sources.

Find an independent report of the session from the Geneva Internet Platform Digital Watch Observatory at https://dig.watch/resources/fake-news-dissolving-superstitions-media-literacy.

Video record

https://youtu.be/rnehllszB6w&t=2963s

Transcript

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This text, document, or file is based on live transcription. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART), captioning, and/or live transcription are provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. This text, document, or file is not to be distributed or used in any way that may violate copyright law.


>> STUDIO: We will start in few minutes.

>> Hello? Can anyone please confirm that this is where Workshop 10 will take place?

>> I am also waiting for the beginning of this Workshop, so I certainly hope this is the place.

>> MODERATOR: Hi, everybody.

>> STUDIO: Good morning, welcome to the EuroDIG 2021 edition. My name is Jelena Cosic. I will be the studio host for the next two sessions. Before I hand over to the moderator for the first session of the day, I would like to briefly go over some session rules.

First, when joining the studio, make sure you display your full name. If you have a question during the session be sure the use the Zoom function to raise your hand. When given the floor, you will be unmuted. When speaking first say your name and affiliation. You can switch on the video if you want to, but that is optional. You can also use the chat to post your questions there. I will be the chat moderator for this session. And I will be sure from time to time pass your questions to the panelists. So don’t hesitate to use the chat. But keep in mind it will not be stored or published.

Lastly, we ask you not to share the Zoom links with anybody. Let them register for the meeting or join us on the YouTube Live stream. With that, I will handover to Maia Simonishvili from National Parliamentary Library of Georgia who will be moderating the next Workshop with name fake news, dissolving super decisions with media literacy. Good morning, Maia.

>> MODERATOR: Good morning, glad to see you.

>> STUDIO: First, to apologize for the delay, we were waiting for a couple of participants to join us from another session. I will hand over to you and I will see you later. Good luck.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Thank you very much for this opportunity, we are very glad about it. It is a certain time I take part in this. Our Workshop is fake news and dissolving superstitions with media literacy. This is an important topic. Why?

During this pandemic we see a lot of superstitions forming from different countries, we are not exception. Georgia. And Tamar will tell you the stories about fake news. We are full of them. Especially it is said that we have it from Russia. We are overflowing about fake news. About vaccination, human rights, and so.

I won’t take your time. Now, I will hand the microphone to our participants. I am really sorry because there was another time written. And I was sent another link, but I think we solved this problem now. And other participants will join us. Hopefully, everything is good. Welcome to our session and now I present – we have three participants, first is Tamar Kintsurashvili who is Executive Director of Media Development Foundation Georgia and mid- Director of fake news agency. She has a lot to tell you about this topic.

And next our participant is Tessa Jolls. Tessa Jolls is one of the founders and Director of consortium of media literacy. I know her from the media literacy. She’s cooperating with the issues and is a special guest for this topic. And we have Sofia Rasgado, working for Ministry of Portugal. She will display good practices about media literacy program, which is in Portugal also.

Then we will have Amelia O. present some topics. Sorry I speak sometimes Deutsche.

So I won’t take your time. Come, please.

>> Tamar Kintsurashvili: Hello, thank you for this experience. Good to see Amelia here. I will discuss an item we presented with Amelia several years ago.

I work in Georgia, with media research, fact-checking and media checking. Recently we became partner with Facebook with the fact-checking platform. This is incorporated in our media literacy program because we decided to develop a practical course to help young people to differentiate quality media content from fabricated one. As Maia mentioned, we’re overloaded with different types of misinformation. In Russia, we have military presence in Georgia, at the same time domestic propaganda is also a problem because different local groups are trying to abuse the social platforms and traditional media. So our fact-checking approach was several stages.

The first one is to detect the problem and identify potential disinformation or harmful narratives. The second page is in case of this information to be constructing false story or fabricated or manipulated story. The most important part of our research is transparency of sources. In case of traditional media outlets, the ownership are more obvious. It is more obvious, we know who sends which political parties or interest groups are trying to influence media content. But in case of Facebook pages and different platforms, it is not always easy to identify intention of the owner or acting in certain manner or resource when ownership of outlets are hidden.

A lot of cases when western brands are used to manipulate and mislead audience. Like GEO news or guardian with spelling mistakes.

The first page is to explain audience what type of disinformation we’re facing. And this is a final one. We develop this comprehensive approach. We use this in our fact-checking activities. But besides this, we launched this mythdetector.ge. This is not for journalists because they’re presumed to be media educated. We help nonjournalists to learn about media. The curricula is six models, the media, in democracy, what we have to know about the transparency of sources, the propaganda, cybersecurity and personal data. This course is practical because it involves internship at our fact-checking platform and the slogan of the program itself is discover truth yourself because nobody likes when you are imposing what is true or false. We’re just equipping young people with necessary tools to differentiate quality media project from fabricated one.

We use also net verification too, able to verify fake photo, video, how identify fake account. They’re able to publish their story at our web portal. Sometimes their publications are republished by Poynter Institute or other groups.

We have almost 200 alumni. And they produce almost 400 fact-checking articles over four years. Learning by doing approach is the best way to exercise, obtain knowledge and practice during the courses. So we think this is successful.

Many alumnis are working in different projects or learning through different media literacy programs. There is no experience in this regard. So we are gaining this experience through practical work.

We also develop some online games involving our alumni as well. They’re oriented for detection of fake news and hate speech, cybersecurity and other skews that are needed to be able to filter harmful information in modern media ecosystem.

On the last slide, you can see our web resources. The fact-checking platform, mythdetector.ge which is also available in English. And millab, where we have resources for teachers and young people. Thank you for your attention, I will respond to your questions later if you have any. Thank you.

>> MODERATOR: [Muted]

>> Tamar Kintsurashvili: Maia, your microphone is muted.

>> MODERATOR: Sorry because I’m in library and I won’t disturb you. I will open the questions because I want everybody to feel free and ask you question. Can you give us some way or examples of fake news and what was the result of it? I read a lot of them.

>> Tamar Kintsurashvili: Yeah, after we started partnership with Facebook, we improved the reach of our articles because we’re able to label the content on the Facebook exercise. I will give you some examples. When we discovered the blogger whose photo was generated by artificial intelligence and he was quoted as a pro-Government media as against businessmen. Facebook deleted this blog because it violated community standard. [Audio skipping] this is one example how harmful it might be. Because unexisting person might be presenting as a source of information in traditional media outlets.

Despite this, there are a lot of cases when some disinformation stemming from hostile country tries to create clashes between people of different religious belief or identity. We found some story based on the Russian media outlets presenting the local Muslims as a separatist, trying to defend independence from [audio skipping] with the help of nourishing Turkey, because their attempts to do so triggered the story and saying that Turkey who was historically occupied but not now tried to occupy and regain control over some parts of Georgia. So this is very sensitive topics.

And the picture used in this article was depicting totally different event. When the rights of Muslims were violated. They were protecting their rights. There was no demand to separate from Georgia and to defend independence by harm.

So this is illustration when the content itself is harmful with the intention to create crashes between Georgian Muslims and orthodox Georgians. That is why it is important to differentiate mistakes and misinformation from disinformation which might be harmful. And create conflict. Because all Georgian far-right groups amplified this content immediately and it was coordinated [audio skipping] of this disinformation.

>> MODERATOR: [Muted]

sorry. Thank you Tamar. It is really good example of why we need media literacy from the beginning to look at events with critical mind. I don’t want to take much time of you. And now I will hand the microphone to Tessa Jolls.

Ms. Tessa Jolls. It is really enjoyable to see you. And I suppose you have many interesting things to share with us.

>> Tessa Jolls: Well, I hope so.

>> MODERATOR: And we can create question and answer topic for everybody later. But I want that everybody has a chance to present their presentation, because they have worked about it. Thank you, Tessa.

>> Tessa Jolls: Thank you, Maia, wonderful to see you. Wonderful to see everyone here. Thank you so much to the invite, really looking forward to discussing. Let me go ahead and put my presentation up. I will Chair that. I guess I better put my grasses on here. Ha-ha. All right. Let’s see I want to put my slide show up. Where is it? Okay.

Sorry about all of these things. All right.

Okay. Well, I wanted to start with this idea, because I saw a quote recently that I was very impressed with because it captured one of the issues that I have with all of the emphasis on facts. Because I think we all realize people interpret facts differently. People present different facts, even when they’re trying to make the same argument, many times.

So this quote is we see things not as they are, but as we are.

I apologize for the typo. We see things not as they are, but as we are. In media literacy we talk about the importance of audience and the importance of understanding the psychology of the audience. And also helping the audience acquire critical thinking skills. So.

A lot of the discussions that we have had so far has been on the idea of content. What is the content? What does the content say? And what are the facts associated with that content? And definitely, it’s a very important skill to have to be able to deconstruct content, to understand it, to be able to critically analyze it. That is very important. But it is not enough by itself. Because when you really think about it, the content plus the context of the message is what really makes the message. And so what’s the context, you might say? Well, the context is us. We always bring ourselves to the message.

We bring our knowledge. We bring our experience. We bring our attitudes. We bring all kinds of prior information. So just looking at the content itself is never enough, because again, what was the sentence I mentioned? We see things not as they are, not as the content is, no. We see them along with the context of how we view that content. And therefore, there are a million interpretations of a movie. The text is the same. The interpretation is always going to be different, which is what makes it so much fun to talk about.

So we need to keep in mind when it comes to media literacy that it truly is about representation. How is the message represented and how do we look at that representation and interpret it for ourselves? And so we like to look at a couple of other ideas in association with media literacy.

First of all, we have an empowerment through education philosophy, which means that we focus on educating the audience. That is really where the power is. The power is in the audience. To make the interpretation, and then decide and take action. Therefore, we must focus on the audience. And the other thing is that certainly in the U.S. we tend to take a lighter regulatory approach, figuring it is important to educate people, have them make their own decisions. But someone mentioned in the earlier session today about the power of the technology companies to all of a sudden be the censors and they’re regulating content, whether the Government does or not. We all need to be concerned about that.

Now, I wanted to give you an example of the power of context. Look at this picture. Now, if we only looked at the content, what would we say? Well, there’s, you know, an older White man, he’s got kind of silvery, blondie hair. There is part of a flag. It has stars and stripes. It may be U.S.

Has a blue tie, white shirt. Has an American flag pinned on his lapel. Has a blue suit jacket. Okay. But I am sure that when we all looked at this picture, we knew immediately that is Donald Trump. Now, was there anywhere on the picture that says that’s Donald Trump? No!

But we brought our interpretation to the picture. What if Donald Trump had a double? We don’t know. [Chuckling].

This is a great example of how we bring our attitude, experience, knowledge, our previous understanding. And we bring our attitudes because of course, we know that Donald Trump has been a very contentious person, and people love him, hate him, everything in between. So all of these attitudes we bring to the image and the content. Let’s look at the big ideas. Again, I’m trying to strip it down to the essence, so that you feel that you are already familiar with some big ideas in media literacy. And you can think, hey, it is not impossible to teach critical thinking about media. It is not impossible. It shouldn’t take 18 years. Although it helps if you have more time.

But nevertheless, we want to be able to reach that audience and get the message across. So we have already talked about this one.

One of the big ideas behind media literacy is audience. Different people understand media messages differently. That is what we call one of the core concepts of media literacy that were originally developed by UK academics and people from Canada. So when we brought them from Canada to the U.S., Canada has eight concepts, and we said wait. That’s way too many. This is the United States, we’re only going to have five! [Chuckling].

So again, we simplified and tried to really capture the big ideas in a quicker way. A more accessible way. Now, let’s look at the other concepts. There is the idea of authorship, the idea of how media are constructed. All media are made by someone and so we ask questions about that. Well, who created the message? And that gets at the idea of authorship. Then we look at techniques and formats. We say, well, what kind of creative techniques are used? What kind of technology is used? We know there are many factors that go into the creation of a message. Maybe it is one person on social media or maybe it is a whole gallery of people who produce a movie. So we know that these techniques are very persuasive. We need to be very cognizant of what they are. And when it is important enough to us, we will be very concerned about these methods of persuasion.

All right. I already mentioned audience. Let’s go to the next one. Framing. Bias. Now, that is probably one of the most important concepts these days from the standpoint of news consumption. Again, from the standpoint of the audience. What is the point of view of the publication? We say in media literacy field that all media have embedded lifestyles and points of view. That simply means all media have bias, because again, the authors bring themselves to the message, just like you bring yourself to the message. And you’re not going to separate the dancer from the dance.

They work together. Always. And so it is very important to look at framing and bias. And I will give you an example of some work that we did with students at the University of Latvia. We taught media literacy course for the first time last year. I’m sorry. It was in 2019. And actually we had the students deconstruct fact-checking sites. They looked at a half dozen fact-checking sites, and they were able to identify the political bias. It was very evident.

So again, we come back to the whole idea that if there is content, then there is authorship. Then there are techniques. There are different interpretations. There is bias. The message is always framed. Think of a picture frame. What is inside the frame? What’s outside the frame? And we want people to think about these ideas every time that they look at a media message that they want to think critically about. And kind of do some risk management. Look at the last one, purposes of power and profit. Maybe it is both. We know in an ad or car advertisement, what do they do? They present a world view of this beautiful setting that the car is in and how wonderful it is. How you will have freedom and all the other wonderful benefits from the car. Of course, they’re trying to sell you. But at the same time, they’re presenting you with kind of an ideal lifestyle that they want you to buy into and be willing to pay for. And so again when we look at media messages, we have to lock at purpose and we need to understand the business models behind the industry. Because these day, we all know that we’re the ones being sold. Our data is being sold. We have no personal property rights on our data. We sign it all away whenever we sign up for the service.

So we have some important work to do going forward as citizens when we think about our relationship with media. Because certainly, there are a lot of analogies to voting when you think about – when you buy a car, you vote. You vote for that car. You vote for that manufacturer. When you look at a politician and look at how the politician packages him or herself. You have to decide. You vote. It takes skill to do that. It also takes an understanding of how the media system works globally. It is a global system.

I would like to say facts are fact. People are people. Again, we see things not as they are, but as we are. So I hope that will give everyone something to think about. I know I have been thinking about this ever since I saw the sentence. So, I’ll enjoy hearing the rest of the presenters. Thanks.

>> MODERATOR: Who has a question? Do we have some questions? Maybe?

I will have to ask you question. The topic you present is very philosophical. Although it is some kind of PhD topic, I suppose. And now I ask little bit practical question. You are now coordinated with NATO and the Union. Can you tell us about it and how it will improve the situation?

>> Tessa Jolls: Well, first of all, media literacy has been declared a strategic priority by U.S. embassies throughout the world. I think everyone should be aware of that because it is a very important goal to really help prepare people to be able to access information, analyze it, evaluate it, create it. And also participate with media messages. And then with NATO having so much influence in the EU and also in Turkey. They see media literacy as a strategic defense priority.

Reason being, they recognize that the only way people can withstand propaganda and be more able to sort through and make their decisions and hopefully lean more in a democratic direction is if the population is resilient and has media literacy skills. And they see media literacy as a key piece of resiliency.

So what I am working on with NATO is to better connect with media literacy community with NATO so that as NATO is looking to encourage media literacy in its member countries that in the media literacy field in the community, are prepared with the research, we have some connections, we’re able to help Governmental agencies, policy agencies be able to better understand how to use media literacy in a very strategic way.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Tessa, we have one question here from Giacomo. Thank you. Is media literacy in the school curriculum in the U.S.? In which order of school? Is this a federal or state matter to teach literacy at schools? Do you have it?

>> Tessa Jolls: Well, unfortunately in the United States, the education system works so differently. We are very decentralized. We don’t have a centralized federal curriculum. And so each state is responsible for the education curriculum. And each state has multiple school districts. And these school districts are ultimately the ones that are responsible for choosing curricula, training teachers, and providing the educational content that the children in their particular Region will have. So it makes it difficult to have consensus or agreement.

We have what are called state education standards, and these standards do have some media literacy-related topics. But I’ll be honest, I don’t feel they’re as strong as they need to be. And we definitely need a lot more implementation of media literacy at the grassroots level in the United States.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Tessa. And I just ask for the moment, one question to Tamar. There is a question, how we Georgians solve this problem with so much disinformation? And what is that, also. Tessa – [audio skipping]. Really for the country, different. Maybe another critical mind. Tamar, can you please answer, how we defend ourselves from so much disinformation.

>> Tamar Kintsurashvili: Thank you. That question is about harmful disinformation. It is important to differentiate misinformation for intentionally disseminated disinformation which is mostly related to Kremlin. And I mention one example about intention to create clashes between people of different religious context.

From September, we have started partnership with Facebook. We have labeled this content on Facebook as false. We’re very cautious because perception [audio skipping] and intervention, from Facebook, is totally regulated several years ago is quite problematic. Some people think it is some kind of censorship. Our task is to preserve trust in fact-checking because politically there is coverage and perception of different news is not our goal to address. We’re mostly focused on harmful information.

One is the mechanism with Facebook which reduces the distribution – further distribution of such content. We saw emergence much the (?) related fake accounts in line with the conflict. It was harmful because [audio skipping] large Armenian population. We have Muslims and it is easy to add fuel to the fire.

We do it through media literacy and students can defunction – debunk this themselves. Sometimes the historical facts are truth, as Tessa said, they can be used to change focus from current security challenges, namely Russian occupation to other historical facts. [Audio skipping] Ottoman Empire. And creating tensions because Turkey’s Muslim country and Russia is orthodox country. And it is framed in a way that west is weak to protect us from security challenges Russia created itself. And only orthodox Russia and powerful Russia can defend us from Turkish threat and to defend our religious beliefs.

There is one message constructed in a way saying that even Russia attack us physically, west trying to destroy our soul and spirituality and the soul is more important than our physical being.

They are weaponizing the religious to create conflict and division within society. We produce annual reports [audio skipping] fact-checking in order to give our audience understanding about the context which is very important in line with fact-based approach and fact-checking.

>> MODERATOR: And now, Tessa, you see it is very connected to security issues. So military security even.

Now, we have one question – oh, I see question for Tamar – I don’t want to miss name. Could media literacy start with teachers that are also critical thinkers about media if it is ideally embedded for all subjects. How can you prepare teachers to prepare media literacy in the curriculum? This is difficult in a few hours. Critical thinkers in our schools is (?) in all Soviet countries because teachers are dumping children. Therefore there was no critical thinking. I have to tell you. And we feel the consequences of it here today, every day. You go to the Facebook, you really feel it. Maybe we have to teach new generation of teachers. But at the Georgian schools, media literacy is improving and I have to mention also communication Commission, who teach children, teenagers to think critically and to train in media literacy and now they implement American program. RABI. That is a book about coding, about media literacy and say it is translated this book and hand it to the children.

Teachers are a little bit like children. I’m out of time, I’m afraid, I will cover all topics. I won’t take your time. To add to point, are you noticing a different approach to media consumption by younger generation, having in mind that they were exposed to the Internet since very young ages? Are they able to detect bias more intuitively?

I won’t answer this question because I won’t take your part. Please answer this question, hope you will answer this question, maybe Tamar or Giacomo or Tessa. What is the media consumption by younger generation and if they feel intuitively they need critical thinking? I won’t answer it. Maybe I will answer, but I won’t answer. Because you are the specialists.

>> Tessa Jolls: I can respond and certainly other people can jump in. But first of all, a lot of the research that is coming out of OFCOM in Great Britain is showing young people are getting their information from different sources. I’m talking about news information.

They’re getting it from YouTube is one of the primary sources. And so again, think about what a change that is. All of a sudden, the primary source is video. It’s probably not vetted by anyone. Oftentimes, they’re not professional journalists associated with YouTube productions. But nevertheless, young people are going there and really using it for news.

So do they need media literacy training? Yes! I believe they do. Because, again, we need to think about the critical thinking, and those big ideas, I talked about earlier. They need to have a deeper understand. They need guidance and practice. And there are other studies that show that young people, although they may have many technology skills, it doesn’t mean that they necessarily have the critical thinking skills to go along with the technology.

They don’t discern. They don’t necessarily understand how media works. And how media may persuade them or manipulate them. So they need to have a better understanding. Again, that is not to say that media is bad. Because if we label it that way, you know, we will lose every young person on the planet. Ha-ha.

So we have to look at media as it is. The good, the bad, the indifferent. Work with people. In terms of differences of working with young people, that is primary. If they feel that the program is a threat to their continued use, they want nothing to do with it. So, you know, I think that the way that we approach them, we have to approach them with respect for what is so important to them. And yet at the same time, we need them to understand what an important tool it is and what an important responsibility it is to really understand what they are carrying around in the palm of their hands.

>> Tamar Kintsurashvili: I will jump in, actually there is no study in Georgia, in researching changing media consumption among youth. And this is problem. And we have a lot of training with help of U.S. embassy, Regions, we are working with Deutsche and mainly with youth.

we’re thinking they’re more open to technology and amplifying of information.

But what we are observing is a lack of understanding that young people are in need of news consumption. Because they are mostly looking for entertaining content. TikTok becomes very popular, which is entertaining platform. They are not looking for information, which is necessary in order to make informed choices in democracy. The information can find them. And this is challenge of our time.

So we have to rise everything of the importance of news and information for their daily life. And their [audio skipping] go to schools, this is a challenge for Georgia. Because (?) it is quite strong in educational system. Even though it is officially prohibited, which is against critical thinking.

We have one quote. There is a slide about invented story and headline. Usually Russian media outlets are reproducing satirical content as a real news about pervert likes style of western people. When Americans are raping mommies or the animals and there is four headlines, one is about American museum guard raping mommy. And another Russian Parliamentary church to help with the spirituality of the Russian soldiers. We ask the trainings which one is invented. Everyone thinks that flying church is invented while pervert image of western people is something acceptable.

So this is example showing that unconsciously, this Russian propaganda influences even mind-set of young people, acknowledging Russian propaganda as a problem.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Tamar. Yeah, because we are here.

Now, where is Sofia? Sofia, I am looking for Sofia. Our third participant. Thank you for participating. I am happy about you. She’s working at Ministry of Portugal and will talk about the talk about the program Centro Internet Segura. It is also famous for results. You are welcome to share your results with us.

>> Sofia Rasgado: Thank you, Maia. I had not my camera on. I am having trouble with my Internet. I hope everything goes well now. As Maia said I’m Sofia Rasgado I’m coordinator of the Centro Internet organization. Thank you for the Workshop. It was nice to hear the discussion regarding media literacy.

To start, I would like to give you a brief virtual overview of the safer Internet center. We’re a consortium built by public and private organizations, which complement the work towards safer online ecosystem for all. Our mission is to develop a culture of safer and healthier use of the Internet, empowering citizens to make informed choice and to contribute to fight against bad conduct and illegal content available online. Through our awareness center we educate and raise awareness about online safety focusing on children, youngsters, parents, grandparents, and teachers.

We also develop awareness resources available in the project website where it is possible to create kits for different target groups. Our center helps improve digital literacy and inclusion. And create Best Practices. It is my goal today to share with you some examples of Best Practices on tackling and identifying disinformation and promoting media literacy education in Portugal.

In the last two decades, Portugal experienced technological developments that lead to new needs of skills for an informed and safe use of the media. In particular, the Internet and new technologies. Since 2009, the regulatory authority for the media is one of the entities responsible for promoting initiatives in this field. And based on the framework media literacy approved in April 2014. And in collaboration with other entities from the education sector founded the informal group for media literacy aimed to promote mid- education policies. During the last few years, under the auspices of this group, several initiatives have been successfully carried out. Namely, the national literacy media and citizenship Congress organized every two years at its fifth edition in 2019, targeting professionals and policymakers in the field of media literacy. Worked with also official launch of massive open online course on bullying and cyberbullying action. This course was to raise awareness of bullying and cyberbullying to identify it and prevent it. This is another initiative of this group and hangs at promoting media education and critical thinking in the sharing of the activities of the website created for this purpose. In 2020 it was scheduled as usual for the first week of May, however due to COVID-19, the event was home based. This was a great event. This my name is, Indicators Symposium, cybersecurity stood out as central themes due to the relevance in the pandemic context.

This year, everyone was challenged to create media, use, critical analysis, and production. In a year in which we had to stay home – again – screens were more present in our lives. It is therefore important to reflect on how they help to form our opinions and how they contribute to build our perception of the world.

This year it was organized on media literacy and inequalities with two dedicated panels. Media literacy and digital inclusion and pathways to citizenship. It was attended by more than 150 participants.

In April 2017, the national initiative in 2030 was launched. It is the inter-Ministerial initiative that aims to enhance information and communication technology skills of the Portuguese population and therefore it includes accounting of young people through encouragement and reinforcement in the fields of digital literacy and digital skills in all cycles of education and lifelong learning. In Portugal, media literacy is included in the citizenship curriculum which framework promotes the critical use of media, especially in the context of new technologies. Regarding the safe use of the Internet and social networks. Within the scope of the education sector, develop the education sector has been developing a set of initiatives of which I would like to highlight.

Media action contest was dedicated to the theme of the media literacy in the times of pandemic. In the online content, the safer Internet center developed a YouTube series built by 12 episodes on how to create media digital content, using easy access tools such as smartphones and free digital editing software, among others.

Side star is another example. It is a competition that aims to promote digital media literacy through creation of digital content in the PT domain. More of a call for creativity and entrepreneurship, this invites the youth community to develop relevant online content. Young people can, as authors and creators, actively produce content, respecting the intellectual property, and complying with the rules of security and privacy of the digital world.

Zigzag Internet, another example, is an online radio series produced by us in partnership with the public Portuguese radio intelligence station. This program aims to raise awareness about digital literacy including topics of copyright, misinformation, fake news, e-privacy and cyberbullying, among many others. The broadcasts are available in multiple online platforms and due to this, it was impossible to precise the number of listeners. Although during last year, according to data available, the numbers tripled. They were listened by more than 17 thousand listeners on the broadcasts. One reason for the huge growth of the lockdown period.

To ensure the follow-up of the resource, the safer Internet center created now 30 more episodes. However, to be sure the chosen themes and language appeals to the target group that is between 4 and 9. Children and youngsters were invited to take part of the Focus Group. And it was not possible this year to engage them in a face-to-face Workshop. So we send them the last version of the episodes for their feedback.

And last but not least, I have to present our last resource the cyber-informed citizen course. It is e-course launched last year, it is to teach with fake news, to ensure skills to help participants to understand the credibility of news content in Portugal.

This online course was developed by the National Cybersecurity Center in partnership with Lista. A specialist in the field of the information. The learning objectives for all participants is to understand what fake news are. How they merge and spread, understand experience of fighting fake news and how to do it, verify the voracity of the news or information online. And also understand why we should believe in journalists and not stop consuming information online.

Until now we had more than 1,000 participants in this course. So if there are any questions, I’m very happy to answer and thank you so much, Maia. Thank you.

>> MODERATOR: [Muted]

so you’re welcome. Thank you very much. It was really good information. Maybe we have to keep connection because we don’t know about Portuguese very well. And it is really good experience. Now I’m handing the microphone to Amelia. I was asking for a European representative at our session. Amelia will share your experience with us. And the new programs from Deutsche. Thank you very much.

>> Amelia: Thank you for inviting me and for the opportunity to share experience of Dutch Ville academy. It was happy to see how successful this project is. Tessa, I loved your quote. I’m thinking about now continue it is really interesting initiatives and projects in Portugal, thank you very much. Regarding the Dutch Ville academy, we’re working on media literacy in 27 countries, overall. Across Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America. We’re using different methods. Working on different levels of formal, nonformal education, also different ages. I was thinking about the topic of this session and how to effectively combat this different manipulation and Internet fake news, sophistication, whatever, you name it.

Our approach is one of the most effective is to target the youngest ones. I was going to present you a couple of examples from Ukraine and where we work right now. I do not show a presentation. I will later spam you with links in the chat. First of all, in Ukraine, last year, we started a course for young people at age 12 to 15. Because the idea was just to shape new approach and to take the niche still untouched. Went online, reached lots of people. Created competition. Initially it was not tailored for the online project, but then the corona entered our lives. So we need to switch to it. It was how to keep them active. Suddenly, the Internet was overloaded and crowded with lots of online events. So the young people were just getting lots of opportunities. This was a challenge. It is still a challenge to attract and keep the people. For example, we thought when we organize the big international event, it could be innovative format, in a form of TV show. When you are mixing host guests of the studio, offline with online Workshops. Yes, also the gamification, I guess, was mentioned here. It is a brilliant possibility also. The games, quizzes, how to engage the young people also adults use it. It is in Ukraine, but you can still have a look. As an interesting approach uses by our partners. This was also for this course organized and issued by the partner public broadcast, it is important this kind of organization is conducting these trainings. Regarding this Kyrgyzstan experience. We work there, but also in formal education. There is also no formal activity how to attract young people. The music video, in the Turkish language, that means don’t let – don’t get deceived or diluted, let’s say. Or fooled. Two subjects are popular celebrities, singing there and singing about how important it is to check sources, verify, et cetera. Other is 3D information for young people. I forgot to mention, we’re targeting people from 14 to 17. 3D information. Very interesting how to tell children this aspect, how to pose this critical thinking. And other was like creating Instagram videos and using (?) plus humor to bring media literacy to the young people. I guess this is also an issue and question for us now that the young people they’re digital population and more savvy, but vulnerable to the digital attacks. So they don’t know how to behave themselves. So in this sense, we are talking digital rights. You need to take into consideration of stakeholders. Although children are dependent on parents. The authorities, the team need to get permission from the people. But it is lots of work. Is it worth it. At the end of the day. It is also interesting if you pick up those young people online where they’re more active. And also big potential that the people are more often to get those attitudes to get other perspectives. To boost the critical thinking skills. Yes challenges are how to convince stakeholders and how to tract and keep the young peoples. And how to assure good quality of final products, if you want those people to produce something. I will probably stop here, I am ready to answer your questions, if you have any. Thank you.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Amelia. I hope the cooperation will continue in the Region. Don’t have any questions. If you have any questions, please ask, feel free.

>> Amelia: I just posted the links to different examples. It is in five languages, international languages. So feel free to enjoy it.

>> MODERATOR: Yes. Thank you. What wonders me during this pandemic is that very few people understand meaning of prevention. And it was really surprising for me when grown-ups and politicians, many don’t know prevention measures. Maybe we hear something from the medical point of view. I think literacy have a lot of work on this medical issues and prevention issues. It is surprising certainly how many people don’t get what’s prevention at all.

I have one idea. Is it possible for everyone to tell their takeaway messages, so everyone is involved and everyone has something to share and to share their message for this? I think it would be good. So I will – I was told it was time to give word to reporter. Although I would have you all – have your say during this session. So we are listening to reporter. Where is our reporter?

>> Natasa Perucica: Hello? Can you hear me?

>> MODERATOR: Natasa Perucica, yes.

>> Natasa Perucica: I would ask the studio in Belgrade to share the messages.

>> MODERATOR: To share the screen with messages.

>> Natasa Perucica: Before we start, I would like to say my name is Natasa Perucica I am Geneva Internet Platform Rapporteur. We’re the official reporting partner of EuroDIG. We will provide key messages and session reports from all the Workshops. You can consult the reports on the GIP digital watch observatory. I would like to remind you the messages will be available for additional commenting on the EuroDIG platform. And EuroDIG will provide more information on that. But now, let me get to the messages. So next slide, please.

The first message is manipulation of media sources whether in the form of disinformation or misinformation can fuel violent conflict. If you have any [audio skipping] or if you wish to modify the message, please leave comments in the chat. If not, we can – we will go to the second message.

The second message is the following, one crucial aspect to media literacy is to educate the audience, that in most cases determines the context of the message by bringing all kinds of prior information including knowledge, experience, and attitudes.

The third and final message is youth need a deeper understanding and knowledge on media literacy to be able to discern the accuracy of sources.

Over to you, Maia.

>> MODERATOR: Well, thank you very much. It is really true, we saw a lot of examples of conflict due to the media messages. Very often. Sometimes media even puts gas in this conflict, we have to say from different sources. Hopefully, we solve this problem.

Could anybody have the message, please welcome. I want you to feel at home and feel free and involved in this session. We’re in Academia at the moment. Please share your one-sentence messages. Everyone. So what is your messages? What we need in legislative measures, empowerments to do. And what will help us? To promote this media literacy?

>> Hello there. I had raised my hand. Me I speak? I had already raised my hand before?

>> MODERATOR: Yes, of course you may.

>> Thank you. I have a question and comment to the last message. The comment is whether – wouldn’t it be necessary to also – not only burden youth with having the right media literacy to discern misinformation and put somehow responsibility on the platform providers? That was my question. And my comment and my question was when you were talking about prevention and that you don’t see any prevention measures during the pandemic situation, for what area do you – on which area is that based? Because I can say from Germany, as well as from UK, for example, where we have good context, we see a lot of prevention on measures. That is why I am asking where are you taking that from, that there is no prevention and measure?

>> MODERATOR: [Muted]I have yes, of course, you are Germany and German intervention is one of the most famous country, I suppose. But it is true because I don’t want to talk about myself now, but it appears from my childhood I remembered this prevention talk about how the word, pandemic, viruses so on. And when we’re talking of course our country tries the best what we can. We’re a developing country, for example.

You are developed country. We work with developed country. And when we’re talking about prevention, many people are very stubborn. They are just stubborn to believe in viruses to believe in prevention to believe in vaccination. I suppose it was not way for pandemic at all. I suppose people were very self-assured and self-absorbed maybe. And the world where sure it never happened to us. We are so educated and so clever. So good now, that the pandemic would not happen to us. But it happened.

It means that there were some niches in education or maybe in politics, in every aspect. Very interesting part of it. Because pandemic may make us to see all problems next. (?)

So we see very often you cannot teach prevention just in one month or in a year. So we see that children have to hear, study, and know about it, so when something like this breaks, some insecurity, some happening, some threat, they know very fast how to use the skills to prevent themselves and country, so on. I mean this part of education. This part of media literacy, that media literacy is really good tool to implement this knowledge.

So prevention knowledge, medical knowledge, and when I think about this prevention skills, I see that they could be working their private lives, where nobody sees them. These measures. So you cannot teach prevention just in months when something happens. And they have to be prepared for it a long time before. So it comes naturally to use this self-defense skills. I think so, maybe I have mistake. Sorry, I’m too talkative now. Now who will talk now. So your messages.

Giacomo is modest – you are very modest to know young people attitude.

>> STUDIO: (?)

>> MODERATOR: The connection with young people.

>> In a nutshell, I think that we need to work all together, because we need continuity. You cannot be media literacy is not a matter of people that go to school or the digital generation. It is a problem across society. We need to start at school and even before in the preschool.

>> STUDIO: Not on mute. That are.

>> ATTENDEE: That are mentioned by others and arriving in the media, especially public service media that can complement for those at school or not exposed to public initiatives to educating them. I think we have to go to move towards a society in which literacy is permanent effort. All the lifelong.

>> STUDIO: Thank you, everyone for the great session. We have to finish now. We have five minutes until the start of the next Workshop. Which will be on self-regulation and co-regulation of the platforms, which might be interesting for the people who are with us now. So stay with us for another five minutes, then we will continue with our schedule. See you later.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you for taking part in the session. I have to give them say. Oh, we’re now sent (?)...

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