Boosting Disinformation Resilience Among Central European Seniors – A Comprehensive Practitioner’s Guide in Four Online Sessions

Since 2018, Transitions and its partners have been testing different approaches to assist the senior population in the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary in navigating the current information disorder with ease and confidence. We organized more than 150 events in all corners of the region, developed online and offline innovative learning programs, conducted surveys, research, and focus groups, worked with local actors, and shared the control of the whole process with seniors themselves.

Join us for a series of 4 online sessions where the program coordinators will introduce you to the key principles and advise on how to empower older adults in your communities to become active partners in the counter-disinformation efforts.

1. From Media Literacy to Trust Building and Service Design

Jaroslav Valuch from Transitions will introduce the program, its origins, and its evolution from a counter-fake news initiative into a service that empowers seniors to take control of the process, in areas such as information verification, fact-checking, and debunking.

Dec 8, 2021, 2 PM CET

2. Putting Seniors Behind the Steering Wheel

Karolina Śmigiel from TITE will share lessons from the participatory design approach that engages seniors to help create and implement the program and empowers them through peer learning.

Jan 11, 2022, 2 PM CET

3. Bridging the Generational Divide

Sandor Orban from CIJ will introduce his experience from implementing an intergenerational program that focused on educational activities. Lessons from cooperation with journalism students will be introduced as well.

Jan 25, 2022, 2 PM CET

4. Understanding the Seniors’ Media and Information Ecosystem

Marek Mračka from MEMO98 will share lessons learned from the methodology behind media monitoring, which helps inform on online media consumption of the older adults.

Feb 8, 2022, 2 PM CET

Speakers:

Jaroslav Valuch: Jaroslav Valuch is an experienced practitioner in the field of media literacy, countering hate speech, and communication with crisis-affected populations. At Transitions, he leads the News Literacy and Fact-checking program. Jaroslav has worked with dozens of organizations and civic initiatives in Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Since 2005, he has been working closely with the One World in Schools program, run by the People in Need organization, on the implementation of media literacy into educational curriculum. Jaroslav is also a co-founder of the Institute for Social Inclusion where he oversees hate violence and extremism-related programs. In 2010, he was a Fulbright Fellow at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland.

Karolina Śmigiel: Karolina is a film producer, cultural project manager, board member of the film production company UNI-SOLO Studio, member and co-founder of Wild Berry Film Association, co-creator, and coordinator of different educational activities, and an expert and cultural animator. She is the coordinator of the media education program at Association of Creative Initiatives “ę” where she created media programs for young people, minorities, and migrants (Polska Lab, Displaced in Media) and now she is developing a media education program for seniors “Seniors on the Web”. The program uses the many years of experience of Towarzystwo Inicjatyw Twórczych ę in creating cultural and social programs for seniors in Poland, introducing participatory elements and peer education to media literacy.

Sandor Orbán: Sándor Orbán is the director of the Budapest Center for Independent Journalism.  For more than two decades he has been managing media development projects aimed at supporting quality and ethical journalism. His main fields of expertise include journalism ethics, reporting diversity, and media literacy. As a guest lecturer, he teaches courses on media and communication at the Budapest Metropolitan University.

Marek Mračka: Marek has been working as MEMO98’s Project Coordinator since the organization was founded in 1998, with a one-year break (2009) when he worked as a project manager at Habitat for Humanity. Internationally, he has been involved in election observation or election-related technical assistance in Europe, Africa, and Asia since 2001, working primarily on media-related issues. In recent years, he has become more involved in social media analysis, both within MEMO98 projects and internationally.

Click here to register for the sessions.