Workshop participants learn how to check information from social media
The Museum of the History and Culture of Bukovinian Jews successfully hosted the fourth workshop within the "House of Memory" project, dedicated to discrimination, hate speech, and fake news in the media. The workshop was attended by 15 students from Chernivtsi schools, including Lyceum No. 15 and School No. 38.
From the outset, the high school students were actively involved in the work and watched with great interest the educational presentations prepared by Liliia Shutiak, a lecturer and Associate Professor at the Department of Journalism at Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University. Then, during discussion, they asked questions and expressed their opinions concerning the technologies for spreading fake news on the internet and hate speech in the media.
During the several hours of communication with high school students, one of them confirmed the thesis that the modern generation hardly consumes news via newspapers, television, and online media, and instead prefers Telegram channels and opinion leaders. Therefore, the workshop organizers, with the help of an expert, demonstrated and explained the basic techniques and rules that can help protect against the harmful effects of manipulative technologies, attacks by internet bots, etc.
In the afternoon, the students talked about objectivity and the balanced presentation of materials, avoiding the use of offensive and provocative language during an excursion to the editorial office of the TVA, a local TV channel. Vadym Pelekh, one of the channel’s managers, and his fellow practicing journalists not only answered numerous questions from the students but also showed them the intricacies of the news production process. The children saw the studios where the stories are written, the technical equipment used in this process, had a go at being announcers, etc.
Impressed by what they had seen and heard in the TV channel’s editorial office, the workshop participants completed the final task of creating memes on objectivity, truthfulness, and balance in the media, as well as related topics such as discrimination and hate speech. The high school students performed brilliantly in this exercise: the memes they created were meaningful and witty. The certificates they received at the end of the workshop were certainly well deserved.
