“Media literacy: Regional Dimension” forum in Odesa
On July 27th, Odesa held “Media Literacy: Regional Dimension” forum.
During the forum, the representatives from Odesa regional NGO “Committee of Voters of Ukraine” and IzbirKom media group presented first results of the comprehensive regional campaign. The goal of the campaign was to increase the level of media literacy, critical thinking, and to encourage locals to have mindful perception of media.
Experts, educators, librarians, journalists, and public activists were invited to participate.
Valery Bolgan, Editor in Chief at IzbirKom publishing house and project coordinator, mentioned that the main direction of the first stage was to carry out 56 media literacy trainings in the regions and newly established amalgamated communities. Target audience consisted of school and university students, teachers, librarians and local journalists. Around 920 locals participated in trainings, with about 200 teachers and librarians.
Valery Bolgan said, “The main topics of trainings were media literacy as a vital skill in modern sociopolitical and cultural background in Ukraine; media literacy and civil society; media literacy tools during information warfare; media literacy and media education at educational institutions; media and information literacy at modern library. We hope that every today’s participant will continue our informational work after gaining certain skills and knowledge, too, and will help spreading them throughout the country”.
The importance of promoting media literacy in the region was stressed by Anatolii Boyko, the Head of the regional organization “Committee of Voters of Ukraine”: “Nowadays, our lives are powerful streams of information that influence us. The amount of information keeps increasing exponentially, like a snowball, and we will become vulnerable if we do not try to learn basic skills of media literacy and digital security. Due to different reasons, people in Odesa gain these skills faster and our project has confirmed that this topic is extremely important and relevant in Odesa region. We tried to share the basics of media literacy and some elements of digital security. Now we hope that the participants will continue our work”.
Panel discussion “Media literacy in regions: status and perspectives” was attended by educators and representatives from Odesa I. I. Mechnikov National University, NU “Odesa Law Academy”, Odesa Academy of Odessa Regional Council Continued Education, CU “Odessa Methodic Centre of Educational Initiatives”. The participants discussed teaching media literacy at educational institutions, further training of teachers, encouragement of young people and senior population, etc. The second panel “The Hate Speech” discussed the role of media in forming public opinion on important, controversial situations, the importance of media ethics and standards, possible threat of hate speech and its prevention.
Moreover, the participants attended the master-class “How to differentiate information and digital security”.
This project became possible thanks to the American nation support that was provided through the USAID U-Media project, carried out by the international organization Internews. The content is the exclusive responsibility of the Odesa Regional Non-Governmental Organization «Committee of Voters of Ukraine» and does not necessarily reflect the views of USAID, the US Government and Internews.
View archive