Inclusive Media Literacy Curricula for Youth

Background Media and digital literacy are nowadays skills competing with basic functional literacies. Acknowledging young people’s need to learn how to responsibly navigate the information disorder, to identify disinformation and propaganda, and to use technology in ways that do not infringe upon their rights or others’ is crucial. At the time of the application, according to the 2020 Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), Romania ranks as one of the countries with the smallest number of inhabitants who have basic digital skills in the EU. Hungary fares better, but is still in the last 10 out of the 29 EU countries. Eurostat statistics show that young people between 16-24 years old have basic literacy skills in 68% of cases in Hungary and 56% in Romania, while the EU28 average is as high as 82%. Statistics for the vocational and educational sector in Moldova show that, in 2019, 23% of students don’t have basic digital skills and only 16% have medium to high digital skills. Moreover, most initiatives to bring media literacy to young people do not address those who live in vulnerable conditions, deepening the gap both in terms of media literacy and the digital divide. It is exactly the needs of the vulnerable that this project addressed. Objectives InMedia set out to address the lack of media literacy competence in vulnerable youth. In doing so, another part of its goal was to address the lack of media literacy competencies in youth workers involved with said communities. Overall, its main goal was to develop an integrated inclusive media literacy programme that would enable youth workers to develop transferable media literacy competencies so that they could support youth with various cultural, social or economical obstacles to also develop those competencies. The main objectives of the project were: O1. Development of an integrated inclusive media literacy program for youth workers employing non-formal methodologies with young people with social obstacles and cultural difficulties from RO, MD, HU. O2. Development of competencies on inclusive media and information literacy program with the aid of ToT methodology and training materials for 25 youth workers working with disadvantaged young people from MD, RO, HU. O3. Development of a promotional campaign for the two intellectual outputs for 200 youth workers, media and education professionals etc. The objectives were achieved and some indicators even overachieved, rounding up to a meaningful intervention in the 3 countries. Implementation We implemented the following activities: Project management - defining partnership guidelines and procedures, developing internal tools for progress monitoring and evaluation (online meetings, 3 transnational meetings, work groups for various topics, PM guidelines, communication and dissemination plan, safety guidelines for events, activity-specific gantts etc.) Development of IOs: IO1: Inclusive media and information literacy program with 4 modules and IO2: Training of trainers methodology and training material on inclusive media literacy for youth workers with 2 parts, in RO, EN, HU Learning activities: testing workshops for the content developed with youth from vulnerable communities, ToT with youth workers Communication and Dissemination activities: developing the visual identity of the project, follow-up activities after ToT, media literacy videos, multiplier events, webinars for/with YW, education and media professionals, project communication on FB and to the partners’ networks, 1 resource platform, press releases Evaluation: constant evaluation of all activities implemented, quantitative and qualitative through feedback forms from participants and facilitators; internal recurrent progress evaluation Achievements IO1: Inclusive media and information literacy program (M1 Curriculum for an Inclusive Media and Information Literacy Program; M2 Media Landscape and Fundamental Human Rights; M3 Misinformation in Traditional and New Media; M4 Inclusive Media. A Guide to Teaching Tolerance through Media Literacy) in RO, EN, HU IO2: Training of trainers methodology and training material on inclusive media literacy for youth workers (Part 1 Methodological guide. Teaching and Testing Media Literacy Materials with Young People; Part 2 Toolkit. How to Train Youth Workers to Teach Media Literacy in an Inclusive Way + editable presentations, worksheets) in RO, EN, HU 4 testing workshops with 98 youth from vulnerable communities ToT with 25 YW 25 follow-up activities with 538 youth 4 multiplier events: 2 in Hungary, 1 in Romania, 1 in the Republic of Moldova with 98 YW 5 webinars reaching more than 1000 YW; over 500 YW offered feedback about the IOs 3 MIL videos about freedom of expression, propaganda, stereotypes project communication on FB and partners’ networks (FB page with 201 followers and over 3k reach, overall over 4k reach with all posts and over 600 interactions with the content) 1 resource platform with 3.3k pageviews and over 1k unique visitors