Media Literacy in the Digital Age

Topic: Media Literacy in the Digital Age
Venue: Thessaloniki, Greece

Media are powerful forces in the lives of youth. To be engaged and critical media consumers, young people need to develop skills and habits of media literacy. These skills include being able to access media on a basic level, to analyze it in a critical way based on certain key concepts, to evaluate it based on that analysis and, finally, to produce media oneself. This process of learning media literacy skills is media education.
Today’s information and entertainment technologies communicate to us through a powerful combination of words, images, and sounds. As such, we need to develop a wider set of literacy skills helping us to both comprehend the messages we receive and effectively utilize these tools to design and distribute our messages. Being literate in a media age requires critical thinking skills that empower us as we make decisions, whether in the classroom, the living room, the workplace, or the voting booth. To become a responsible citizen, or competent and conscientious consumer, individuals need to develop expertise with the increasingly sophisticated information and entertainment media that address us on a multi-sensory level, affecting the way we think, feel, and behave.

Young people from 4 different countries will learn on the topic by exploring it always using non-formal education methods, through different angles:
A) Understanding what is media, what is media literacy, and in what ways digital literacy overlap with media literacy
B) Media literacy on analysing and evaluating content: Fake news / misinformation / decontextualisation / Hate speech / Ads and marketing content
C) Creation of media content
- copyright / data collection / privacy
- media content creation: radio, articles, image, video reportage, ads (creative workshops)
-focus on cartooning in the digital age: i) as a tool for critical thinking ii) as a tool that can use humor, iii) as a controversial media, iv) as a universal language v) as a reflection of the diversity of point of views on same subjects according to different countries, regions, political parts, or societal class, vi) as a tool for the fight of human right and the denunciation of inequalities and discriminations
D) Enlightened citizenship and democratic participation thanks to media literacy.

Thanks to the project :
- young people will learn how to access, critically evaluate, and create or manipulate media in a digital context.
- young people will raise their awareness of media influence on their life through digital mediums, and through media literacy education they will develop an active stance towards both consuming and creating media.
- young people will develop their critical thinking and will understand the role of media literacy in democratic participation for European citizens.
-they will have an insight into the practice of cartooning as a media to reflect on the local, national, and international news and how cartooning is related to the fight for human rights and freedom of speech
- young people will develop and improve their debating skills, oral skills, and active listening skills
- young people will acquire intercultural and linguistic skills, through interaction with participants from other european countries and other cultures, enabling them to better understand the different realities that exist in a Europe which is diverse but unified.

We are looking preferably for mutual partnerships.

Please submit your application by completing this Google Form (DEADLINE 4/05): https://forms.gle/nqo8o5ydpq6YKMK67