Start & End Date: 01-06-2019 - 31-08-2020
Place: Weimar (Germany), Krasnodar (Russia), Kharkiv (Ukraine)
Participating Countries: Germany, Ukraine, Russia
Project Partners: CGE Erfurt e.V., Kharkiv Regional Youth Non-Governmental Organisation
"Enlightening Initiative",
Academy of innovation
Number of Participants: 25 participants
Grant Giver: Erasmus+
Funding Program: Key Action 1
Grant Amount: 37274 EUR
Young people in Germany, Ukraine and Russia are getting more exposed to radicalisation as the outcome
of the tense geopolitical situation between the countries, the general trend of re-discovery of
nationalism in Europe and the rise of fake news globally. Media outlets especially contribute
to this process, using negative narratives to confuse and polarise young minds. The partner
consortium of CGE Erfurt e.V., NGO "Englightening Inititiave" and social initiative "Academy
of Innovation" have particularly realised that after evaluating the participants' responses
from another common Erasmus+ project "We are the Peacemakers!". Therefore, to combat the
overwhelming tendency of media influence on youth, the partners organisations, after consulting
with the group leaders, propose a series of media camps for young people to train their critical
thinking in decoding media algorithms behind screaming headlines, catching posters or dubious
articles/post in the Internet.
The idea of #DecodingMedia Camps strongly correlates with the recent developments
in the youth policy on the EU level. As the outcome of the 6th cycle of the EU Youth
Dialogue "Youth in Europe: What’s next?", which was carried out to contribute to the
renewed EU Youth Strategy for 2019-2027 "Engaging, Connecting and Empowering young people",
the European Commission came out with 11 European Youth Goals, among which is "Information &
Constructive Dialogue". In regards to that, the German National Agency in its annual priorities
also committed to prioritise projects, contributing to the development of media competences
and critical thinking of young people. Therefore, we believe that #DecodingMedia Camps are
linked to the objectives of the Erasmus+ program and will foster a culture of critical
thinking and allow a coherent dialogue between German, Ukrainian and Russian youth.
The #DecodingMedia Camps project sets the following objectives:
- to help young people clearly understand the role of media in today’s world;
- to assist youngsters in developing their critical and analytical thinking capabilitien the post-truth era;
- to promote pluralism, freedom of press and freedom of expression;
- to address the issue of hate speech online between the participating countries;
- to combat populism, radicalisation/extremism, censorship and propaganda in Germany, Ukraine and Russia;
- to encourage youth to critically analyse current national and EU affairs;
- to empower youngsters to create their own independent media outlets/products and further
promote critical thinking among their peers;
- to create intercultural learning moments among the participants and between them;
- to enhance participants´ ICT skills.
More than once the Commission has emphasised, that "the ability to judge the true merit of
media content and make conscious choices – or 'media literacy' – becomes ever more essential
for active citizenship and democracy". In the current times of ubiquitous political propaganda,
fake news and public opinion manipulation, we need our young people to stay strong and keep being
engaged in public and political life, protecting the democratic values Europe represents. That is
why #DecodingMedia camps being able to see the information for what it is, is one of the key
competences in the XXI century.
To reach the aims of the project, there will be three camps implemented.
Impact
At the Summer Camp the participants will actively work with text media and produce articles/blog
posts on rethinking media, mediatisation of conflict, tackling hate speech online between Germany,
Ukraine and Russia. Therefore, the main dissemination tools will be websites and social media pages
of the partners.
At the Autumn Camp, the participants will work with graphic materials and in the end create an
online album “Decoded Media” with the best work uncovering the role of media in the post-truth era.
In this case, we will actively use Instagram account of CGE for online promotion and print postcards,
with the pictures from the “Decoded Media” album, as tangible results for spreading in Krasnodar city.
At the Winter Camp, the participants will take cameras in their hands and try themselves in video
reporting, and create their own news pieces, using the knowledge from the two previous exchanges.
The videos will be published on the Youtube and Vimeo channel of CGE and spread among the partners
and participants.
Moreover, in the end of the third camp, there is a final public event planned to take place in
Kharkiv, giving the overview of the project and reporting the successful cooperation between young
people from Germany, Ukraine and Russia. The participants will get the chance to present all their
works to the audience of local activist, politician, local authorities and media companies. After
the presentation, the participants of the project will open a panel discussion on the topic of
“Role of the Media in the Post-Truth Era” to engage the public in an open discussion.
[jr_instagram id="3"]
