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KA2 INN. Youth “CREW”

CRitical thinking against fake nEWs

Project Code: KA205-214909EF

EU Grant: 216.894,00 EUR  

Programme: Erasmus+

Key Action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Action Type: Strategic Partnerships for youth

Coordinating Organization: Kulan Organisation (Denmark)

Participating Countries:

1)            LYKIA IZCILIK VE DOGA SPORLARI KULUBU DERNEGI (Turkey)

2)            MV INTERNATIONAL (Italy)

3)            ASOCIACION JUVENIL INTERCAMBIA (Spain)

4)            HELLO YOUTH (Sweden)

5)            SC PSIHOFORWORLD (Romania)

6)            Innovation Frontiers IKE (Greece)

Project dates:  Start:  01-09-2020   End:  31-08-2022

“CRitical thinking against fake NEWs” (CREW) is 24 months strategic partnership aimed at promoting young people’s critical thinking against fake news about migrants and migration in media narrative through enhancing the capacities of youth operators working with youngsters as well as providing youths with digital architectures of self-learning. Transnationality play a key role in this project, and that for several reasons:

  • In recent years, disinformation including fake news has become a global phenomenon due to its explosive growth, particularly on social media. The widespread of disinformation and fake news can cause detrimental societal effects. Despite the recent progress in detecting disinformation and fake news, a research conducted on 2019 by the media psychology research group “James Focus” on “News and Fake News” shows that just the half of the interviewed young people are used to check the truthfulness of content in media and only 3% of them use tools specifically created to verify the facts. In this situation, one of the main challenges for today’s young people is acquiring the ability to assess the truthfulness of the content of texts, images or videos.
  • Migration is as well a global phenomenon that has been dominating media in Europe in recent years. The International Fact-Checking Network (Ifcn), on 2018 conducted a research on fake news concerning migrants that took place in 22 countries, tracing the origins of 162 fake news and a study conducted in the US in 2017showed that 48 million Twitter accounts are Social Bots, i.e. accounts not managed by a natural person, disseminated with the intent to manipulate public opinion and to arouse emotions, fears, and insecurities. This distorted perception of the migration phenomenon has significant social consequences.

CREW answers the critical necessity of providing European youth with awareness, knowledge, skills, and instruments to critically approach media coverage and narratives regarding the challenge of migrant flows and integration.

 

Objectives of the project are:

  • Analysing the phenomenon of fake news and profiling their main characteristics as well as analyse the stereotyping and misrepresentation of migrants/migration across partner countries, identifying patterns of similarity and divergence.
  • Analysing extant good practices in Europe in the field of promoting youth media literacy on migrants and migration with a view to integrating, combining and improving the state-of-the-art into a Training Format for youth operators by means of a specific Methodological framework.
  • Developing a shared understanding about the European dimension of stereotyping media narratives about migrants/refugees, in their different national declinations, as a prerequirement of model approaches to counter them locally, nationally and transnationally.
  • Empowering transnationally applicable models of non-formal learning focused on the improvement of analytical, critical thinking and research skills of the young people, aimed to empower youth workers as media literacy educators of the youth.

 

All the project activities intend to have an impact on the targets and on the society around them. Young educators and migrants, updated, will be able to transfer knowledge in any contest and toward different targets, having an impact; the same impact that CREW foresees to have at national and international level thanks to the digital tools. Empowered by the contents acquired during the local training courses, will be able to navigate among the contents currently available, and to help to fight to the phenomenon of fake news and to bring new ideas and will stimulate other news users already in the short term.

The project sets itself to achieve the aforementioned core objective during the 24 months of cooperation by delivering the following achievements:

  • Reports of cross-country research on migrants’ representation and migration narratives in media in partner countries. The Report data will be used for the elaboration of a “Critical Thinking against Fake News” Guide, that will be produced as a concrete practical reference for youth operators and organizations across Europe with information, guidelines, and concrete methodological references.
  • Training Format on media literacy for youth operators. The Format will be a self-contained programme of empowerment targeted at youth operators willing to enhance media literacy and critical thinking of young people in the face of the present media narratives about migrants and migration. It will be at the disposal of youth operators and organizations in partner countries and in Europe as a whole.
  • Web Platform and E-Learning modules as a hub of self-learning and e-learning towards the audience of youngsters across Europe. It will include information about the project and digitalized versions of project results in English and in each partner languages. E-learning modules for the development of media literacy and critical thinking.

Events and Project target groups:

Joint Staff Training Event:

N° of participants: 21 (3 youth workers per partner organization)

Age: 18+                      

Profile: Youth operators regular members of the staff of partner organizations

Blended Mobility:

N° of participants: 28 (4 participants per country)

Age: 18-25

Profile: Young people aged 18-25. Half of the participants in each national group (and in the Blended Youth Mobility as a whole) will be youth migrants aged 18-25.

 

Intellectual Output:

IO 1: Research and Training Format on Media Literacy and Critical Thinking for Young People

IO 2: “CRitical thinking against fake nEWs” Guide

IO 3: Web Platform and ELearning Modules

Project objectives / is supportive of the identified priorities as follows:

a) Analyzing the phenomenon of fake news and profiling their main characteristics as well as analyze the stereotyping and misrepresentation of migrants/migration across partner countries, identifying patterns of similarity and divergence.

b) Identifying and analyzing extant good practices in Europe in the field of promoting youth media literacy on migrants and migration with a view to integrating, combining and improving the state-of-the-art into a Training Format for youth operators by means of a specific Methodological framework.

c) Developing a shared understanding about the European dimension of stereotyping media narratives about migrants/refugees, in their different national declinations, as a requirement of model approaches to counter them locally, nationally and transnationally.

d) Empowering transnationally applicable models of non-formal learning focused on the improvement of analytical, critical thinking and research skills of the young people, aimed to empower youth workers as media literacy educators of the youth.