Media literacy - crossborder perspective

The idea of this workshop is to encourage young people to think critically about the media and the role of the media in society, especially in building relationships with those we consider different from ourselves - either because of a personal characteristic or because of belonging to a particular group.

The main goal of this workshop is to encourage young people to think critically and give them a concrete tool that they can use in everyday life. We live in a time when we are oversaturated with information from all sides and it is very important to know what to do with it. The pandemic further emphasizes the importance of critical thinking and media literacy, but the education system still does not encourage young people enough to develop critical thinking. Therefore, it is very important to promote critical thinking through informal workshops and trainings.It is also important to emphasize how these worshops can become an incentive to build intercultural relations and examples of cooperation of individuals or communities.

In mixed groups, the intercultural component should be taken into account, and special care should be dedecated when choosing activities, but also when setting tasks, so that conflicts do not occur.

The exact list of requirements depends on whether the workshop is conducted online or offline.

The exact list of requirements depends on whether the workshop is conducted online or offline.

After the introductory part, the facilitator systematizes the collected information, and than presents what kind of media there are and what their purpose is. Facilitator presentates the basics of fact-checking using the questions: who, what, when, where, why; but also by checking sources, dates, imprints, available links and other sources. The facilitator also presents the basics of critical thinking, how we acquire this skill and where we use it when consuming the media. In the final part of presentation facilitator presents examples of bad media practice that resort to sensationalism and incite fears and mistrust among people. Then the group gets the opportunity to apply the acquired knowledge and create their own media content based on examples of bad practice. In group work, they change the title, the selected photo and the highlighted information. If they have enough time, they can also write the whole text of the news again. They present their work to the rest of the participants.

The facilitator encourages participants to think about and discuss the possibility of using the acquired knowledge in everyday life.