Harnessing the Power of Community Media to Combat Disinformation Erasmus Project

Project Title

Harnessing the Power of Community Media to Combat Disinformation

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Social dialogue

Project Summary

The era of fake news and disinformation is upon us; and research tells us that Europeans are struggling to deal with it. What worries Europeans most, is that so many of us are unable to tell whether a story is real or false (Statisa, 2018). The frequency with which we encounter disinformation and its potential to influence the way we think, how we vote, and what we believe, has made it an important issue in society today. On average, 66% of European citizens encounter fake news or disinformation on a weekly basis, with 37% of citizens witnessing disinformation on their news feeds every day (Statista, 2019).
The term ‘fake news’ refers to media content that shares ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation’. While ‘misinformation’ is the unintentional sharing of false information online; disinformation is more sinister. It describes the deliberate and targeted spread of false information with the aim of influencing or deceiving its audience. Disinformation drives the ‘fake news’ apparatus. It is in this realm that we see the weaponization of context in news reports; the falsification of video or images; the contamination of news headlines as ‘click-bait’ – all with the aim of misleading the audience and influencing their opinions and behaviours. While these tools have been deployed in various political realms – the 2016 US Presidential Election, the 2016 Brexit Referendum and the 2019 European Elections being the most prominent recent examples – today, we see the spread of disinformation among our communities in relation to our health. Since the global outbreak of COVID-19, the World Health Organisation have raised concerns over the impact that the ‘disinformation pandemic’ – or infodemic as it has been termed – will have on the health and well-being of citizens all over the world. With targeted disinformation campaigns recommending treatments for COVID-19 which turn out to be hoaxes, spreading fear over the supposed link between COVID-19 and 5G and raising suspicion over side-effects from potential vaccinations that we have not yet developed or tested; the power of disinformation to impact our health and our sense of emotional and psychological well-being is significant.

Disinformation and fake news is designed to inundate our capacity to make sense of information. This pervasive use of disinformation sabotages democratic processes by creating distrust, confusion and thwarting the common ground necessary for a democracy. Disinformation only serves to spread fear, anxiety, suspicion, hatred, racism, xenophobia and prejudice among our society. It is time that a new approach is found to support European citizens to address the spread of disinformation in society and mitigate its impact on their local community. Through the MEDIA-HACKS project, we aim to develop such an approach to enhance the media literacy of local communities from the ground-up; by supporting local community members to be producers of reliable media content for their own communities and as well as ethical consumers of content.

Through our experience of working with low-skilled communities, the best results have always been achieved when learners are given responsibility and held accountable for their actions. By creating reliable media content, first on a local community level, MEDIA-HACKS aims to support local communities to be accountable for the information that they share with others online; helping to replicate the media ethics of reliable news outlets within a community-media environment. As such, the focus of the MEDIA-HACKS project is to build the skills of ordinary people to cope with the stresses and strains of society today by mitigating the impact of fake-news campaigns aimed at destabilizing the status quo. It aims to build a community media framework that equips local communities with all the knowledge, skills and competences to develop, manage and maintain a comprehensive media service to local residents. The project will pursue an asset-based community development approach to harness the assets within the local communities where partners are based and bring them together under a common community media banner intent or promoting real news about the local area to residents.

The MEDIA-HACKS project will develop the following intellectual outputs to achieve its ambitious target:
IO1. Community Audit Toolkit and Report
IO2. Community Media Skills Development Resources
IO3. Toolkit of Media Moderation Resources
IO4. In-service Training for Adult & Community Educators
IO5. MEDIA-HACKS MOOC & Community of Practice

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 263941 Eur

Project Coordinator

FUTURE IN PERSPECTIVE LIMITED & Country: IE

Project Partners

• INSTITUTO PARA EL FOMENTO DEL DESARROLLO Y LA FORMACION SL
• OSRODEK SZKOLENIOWO-BADAWCZY INNEO
• Rightchallenge – Associação
• Hauptstadtallee 239 V V UG (Skills Elevation FHB)
• Polygonal
• AKLUB CENTRUM VZDELAVANI A PORADENSTVI