The Portuguese organization Aequalitas, and fellow ALF member, led an innovative 12hrs training course aiming to empower civil society organisations by providing the necessary skills and competencies in the fields of media literacy and interculturality.
Trainers, Monica Corrigan and Leo Zbanke, welcomed participants from 11 countries: Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Lithuania, Greece, Finland, France, Palestine, Lebanon and Bulgaria. Aspasia Protogerou from Fotoessa had the privilege to participate in this hands-on digital training course which took place from July 24th to July 27th and was part of the ALF Hands-On training module 6.
The frame
The developments and innovations in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT) have changed the world we live in, making information, communication and knowledge more globalised, and broadening the influence of media, seen as a facilitator to connect people. The rise of social media and its by-products increased the amount of information available on the Internet, transforming everyday people into content producers. Media messages impact human dynamics both at local and global level, influencing economic behaviours, political analysis as much as interpersonal interactions and intercultural dialogue.
The course
This Media Literacy training course aimed to support civil society organisations to:
- Promote more responsible and efficient online communication
- Reflect on stereotypes, their presence in media, and how to avoid them in our communication
- Explore counter-narratives to online bias, stereotypes and hate speech
- Create their own messages, campaigns and communication strategy considering global factors
In this context, participants had the opportunity to learn more on:
- Accessing, analyzing and evaluating media messages
- Interpretation of messages, text and subtext
- Basic persuasion techniques
- Storytelling and audiovisual tools