ACTIVITY INTRODUCTION

Objectives:

• Become familiar with the tools of information and communication
• Use social media for social campaigns
• Develop critical thinking skills

The aim of this exercise is for participants to create an online social campaign. After choosing which topics they want to address, for example, local issues that affect their neighbourhood, as well as a social network to use in order to share their social campaign’s content, students promote a cause by choosing suitable images and slogans. They then share the media content on that social network.

Definition:

An online social campaign can be defined using the tools of social media communication and marketing in order to take on a social issue (the environment, feminism, racism, poverty, etc.). The goal is to promote certain values and mobilise or raise awareness among individuals, especially internet users, on important social issues, or even to create a movement the likes of #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, or the Serbian #1of5million movement.

ACTIVITY INSTRUCTIONS

1. Prepare: Together with students, teachers select the topics their social media campaigns will tackle.

2. Assign tasks: Once topics are chosen, teachers form several groups depending on the number of participants. Each group works on one topic and chooses the best social network to host their campaign.

3. Research: To make an effective social media campaign, participants must gather information on the topics they have chosen so that they understand the context and can make/spread a message that helps support the cause.

4. Find a communication strategy: Participants should think about the best strategy to get their message across:

• Identify the target audience (teens, adults, men, women, etc.).
• Choose the right social network, for example, Instagram for images and Twitter or Facebook for videos and text.
• Type of message (personal account, humour, figures, mini news report, etc.).
• Format of the message (photographs, text, infographics, video, etc.).
• Using the right keywords or hashtags to share the post widely.

5. Launch the campaign: Participants can choose to start their campaign by posting their content to their personal accounts or to create a specific account for the campaign.

ACTIVITY INTRODUCTION

In this activity, students discover the topic of citizen media. They will learn to understand for themselves – while remaining under teacher supervision – the similarities and differences between traditional and citizen media. To do this, they will work in groups to compare different types of media.

Each group reads and analyses a type of media provided by the teacher (a daily newspaper, a URL to news programme, a website, a blog, etc.). One group should be assigned a traditional media outlet to analyse, such as a daily newspaper, and the other a citizen media outlet, such as a blog.

Students can do quick web searches on computers and/or on their smartphones.

The aim of the activity is to ensure that the two groups work together to come up with their own definition of citizen media.

Afterwards, teachers can delve deeper into the subject of citizen media and their impact on the world of information.

ACTIVITY INSTRUCTIONS

1. Set up the room: Divide the students into groups and seat them at computers.
2. Students analyse the suggested media outlet (print newspaper, episode of a news programme, news website, blog, etc.).
3. Students answer questions.

   Example: ‘Describe the media outlet: Do the articles have bylines? Whose name? What type of news does it provide? How is it covered? What type of news is prioritised? Does it have ads? What kinds? How is the information presented (analyse headlines, text, images, etc.)?’

4. Class discussion of what students have found and creation of a common definition based on students’ suggestions. Answers to the questions will lead the teacher to talking about ‘citizen media’.

Note – Definition: Citizen media is media – meaning outlets such as radio, TV, and the internet sources – that are used to provide information to a large audience. The adjective used to modify it – ‘citizen’ – means that the people creating the articles and investigations are not journalists, but rather average citizens who are looking to lead debates on specific issues or problems that affect all of society.

DOING THIS ACTIVITY ONLINE

1. The teacher sends students a Zoom link (or any other platform).
2. Once students are in the meeting, the teacher puts them into ‘virtual breakout groups’ and assigns them the media outlet to analyse by sending them a link.
3. Students can discuss the outlet using the separate ‘rooms’ offered by videoconferencing platforms such as Zoom.
4. The teacher sends the link to the list of questions (created online, for example via the website https://www.dragnsurvey.com/en). Students respond in groups.
5. Class discussion happens remotely on a videoconferencing platform. The teacher can use an ‘online Post-Its’ website, such as https://note.ly as a whiteboard and then lead the discussion.

INTRODUCTION

The aim of this activity is to identify as a group the ‘tools’ conspiracists use (unveiling a ‘mystery’, rhetoric, analysing details) as well as to point out the audio-visual techniques used in conspiracist videos (frightening music, robotic voices, deceptive editing, analysis of symbols, etc.).

To make the activity run more smoothly, it is preferable to find a video in advance that has clearly identifiable conspiracist arguments and elements.

Here are some of the elements to be identified in the video:

1. Anxiety-inducing ambiance: Often, you hear a robotic or mysterious voice accompanied by frightening music (such as in a horror film).

2. Special effects: As with the sound, visual effects such as drawings, edited photos, or ‘face morphing’ can sum up the theory and make it simple and memorable.

3. The video is well-structured and well-edited: The structure usually follows a certain logic, such as by starting with a historical element to lend the video a scientific air. Photomontages (series of images) are also a major factor.

4. Quotes pulled from articles or statements: This takes the quotes out of the context of an article, news report, or a person’s statement (such as a politician or scientist) in order to provide evidence for the theory.

5. Truthful but surprising elements: This is not a matter of taking a fact or statement out of context, but rather of using a true fact or real image, such as images or videos of cats behaving strangely.

6. Uncertain or completely false elements: Some of the pseudo-evidence for the presented theory include elements that are wholly made up, extremely uncertain, or unproven. These are slipped into the explanations to overwhelm and confuse viewers.

ACTIVITY INSTRUCTIONS

1. Before starting the exercise, find a conspiracist video about a current topic or specific issue such as terrorist attacks, new world order, or epidemics.

2. Set up the room: Seat students in front of the projection surface and show the video using a projector. You should instruct them to write down the elements used in the video to persuade viewers and identify the main message, thus identifying the tools – i.e. the form – and the meaning – i.e. the function.

3. Note taking: Participants are asked to take notes throughout the video to be able to report on their comments and impressions.

4. Class discussion: Ask participants about the elements they identified and tell them about elements they may not have seen. This is also a chance to expand the discussion to things participants frequently see on the internet: Have they already seen videos like this before? On which topics? Did those videos convince them? Does the video target a particular group as the enemy, such as politicians or banks?

DOING THIS ACTIVITY ONLINE

1. This activity can also be done remotely. Before class, teachers email the conspiracist video as a file or link.
2. Teachers send the link to the videoconference on Zoom (or any other platform).
3. Students work remotely using Google Drive, Framapad, etc. to note down the most important elements.
4. The class discussion takes place on the videoconferencing platform. The teacher can use an ‘online Post-It’ website, such as http://note.ly, as a whiteboard and take down students’ observations. The teacher then leads the discussion.

ACTIVITY INTRODUCTION

‘Cordless telephone’ is an activity in which participants play together and witness together the disinformation that a speech or event can undergo when it is shared and spread on social media as well as in everyday life. The activity teaches the issue of how statements that circulate online can be twisted and explains the consequences this distortion can cause, especially if the statements directly target people or groups of people.

To begin, a person makes up a story, then whispers it into the ear of the person next to them, who does the same, continuing until every participant has heard the story and told their version of it.

In the post-activity discussion, teachers can bring up the issue of interpretation and subjective biases in spreading information.

Activity variation:

• You can show a picture or short video to the first participant, who then tells their neighbour what they have seen without showing the neighbour the same image. The information is passed orally to the next participant, and so on. At the end of the activity, the teacher shows the original image to the group and observes how it was distorted.

ACTIVITY INSTRUCTIONS

1. Prepare the activity: Teachers must first prepare one or more stories for the game or find images showing an action or event to maximise the number of elements to take into account. You can adjust the difficulty of the activity by adjusting the complexity of the image or story.

2. Set up the room: Teachers give the instructions and tell their version of the story or show the image to the first person.

3. Procedure: First, students sit in a large circle. The first person whispers their story (or their description of the image) into the ear of the person sitting to their right. This person then whispers their version into the ear of the person sitting next to them, and so on until everyone has heard the story. The last person repeats the version that they heard aloud. The group then compares this version with what was told to the person who first told the story and note the differences.

4. Class discussion: To discuss, use the following questions (written on the board): How did the story change when it was told multiple times? What affects the way someone hears and interprets information? What impact do our experiences and interests have on our points of view? Do people sometimes hear multiple interpretations of the same story and start to wonder which version is more accurate? If everyone sees and hears everything slightly differently, how do we know if the story is accurate? How do the changes to the story make you feel? Compare how the first person to tell the story feels compared to the rest of the group. What happens when the story is a personal one and the meaning of the story changes? Would you be willing to share what happened in this activity on the internet?

ACTIVITY INTRODUCTION

Objectives:

• Discover the diversity of perspectives of shared historical events as well as the varying views of the major political figures associated with them.
• Think more critically about one’s own national history.

This activity can be followed up with a discussion on national myths and the figures they pertain to.

ACTIVITY INSTRUCTIONS

1. Set up the room: Divide students into groups according to the number of participants.

2. Once groups are formed, each group chooses the national historical or political figures they consider ‘heroic’ or important and explains why they admire and are proud of these figures. This first part should take between 10 and 20 minutes. Participants can choose an unlimited number of figures.

3. If necessary, and if the room is equipped for it, participants can use computers or their smartphones to collect information or place the figures they have chosen into the correct historical context.

4. Once they have chosen their ‘heroes’, the groups present their lists to each other and the teacher writes the names on the board, underlining those who are mentioned most often.

5. The next part of the activity involves asking the participants questions, such as:

• Was anyone surprised by the heroes listed? Why?

• Does anyone know all of the heroes listed?

• Why are national heroes the ones most people know? What human values do they represent?

• What makes us admire some heroes more than others? Where did we learn to respect them and why? Do you think that if they were still alive today their actions and values would still make them heroes?

• Do you think the heroes listed are universal? Do you think everyone considers them heroes?

These questions should open a discussion among participants.

DOING THIS ACTIVITY ONLINE

1. The teacher creates a link to a Zoom (or other videoconferencing platform) meeting and sends it to students.
2. Once they are in the ‘virtual meeting room’, the teacher puts students into groups (depending on the number of participants).
3. Each group chooses the national historical or political figures they consider ‘heroic’ or important and explains why they admire and are proud of these figures. This first part should take between 10 and 20 minutes. Participants can choose an unlimited number of figures.
4. Once the groups have chosen their ‘heroes’, they present their lists to one another and the teacher writes down the names on a virtual whiteboard, such as https://awwapp.com/#, underlining the names that are mentioned most often.
5. The groups leave the main meeting room and enter ‘breakout rooms’ on Zoom.
6. The next part of the activity involves asking the participants questions, such as:

•Was anyone surprised by the heroes listed? Why?

• Does anyone know all of the heroes listed?

• Why are national heroes the ones most people know? What human values do they represent?

• What makes us admire some heroes more than others? Where did we learn to respect them and why? Do you think that if they were still alive today their actions and values would still make them heroes?

• Do you think the heroes listed are universal? Do you think everyone considers them heroes?

These questions can be sent via Framapad link to the two groups in the Zoom breakout rooms.

1. This is when participants should start researching online to collect information or place the figures they have chosen into the correct historical context.
2. Once the groups have finished their research and answered the questions, they return to the main meeting room to start the class discussion. The teacher can use an ‘online Post-It’ website such as https://note.ly as a whiteboard and show it to all participants in real time via screensharing.

ACTIVITY INTRODUCTION

Objective: Show students that our perceptions are distorted and influenced by factors such as past experiences, expectations, and culture and that the images we have of others effect our interpretation of their behaviour.

This activity has multiple parts. First, the teacher gives students photos that have been cut in half. Then, students are asked to ‘complete’ the photos with the information they can deduce from them. Their perceptions and views of others will affect how they reconstruct the photos.

After showing the complete photo to students, they will work with the teacher to identify recurring themes in their stories. After writing these down on the whiteboard, the teacher starts a discussion about stereotypes and preconceived notions as well as the role of myths in our interactions with others.

ACTIVITY INSTRUCTIONS

1. Teachers give each student a photo that has been cut in half.

2. Students ‘complete’ the story told in the first half of the photo. They have 5 minutes to write the story.

3. Students share what they have written with each other. If the group is large, teachers can create smaller groups of six to eight.

4. The teacher reveals the second half of the photo and asks students to reconsider their impressions.

DOING THIS ACTIVITY ONLINE

1. The teacher prepares the exercise in advance and chooses the photo. The photo to be cut up should reveal a more complex reality as a whole than the incomplete version.
2. The teacher emails the photo to students along with a set of instructions and a link to the meeting room in Zoom or any other platform for the videoconference.
3. In the videoconference, the teacher divides the students into groups.
4. Each group uses a word processor such as Google Drive or Framapad to ‘complete’ the story represented in the first half of the photo. They have 5 minutes to write the story.
5. Class discussion: The teacher can use an ‘online Post-It’ website such as https://note.ly/ as a virtual whiteboard to write down elements from the various stories. The teacher can then moderate a discussion.

APPENDIX: EXAMPLE OF A PHOTO CUT IN HALF

Students ‘complete’ the photo using the information they can deduce from the image.

Here is the complete picture:

It shows Gisèle Marie Rocha, a Brazilian Muslim woman who plays guitar in a metal band.

ACTIVITY INTRODUCTION

The aim of this exercise is to deconstruct stereotypes and perceptions of ‘the other’. Students will explore the images they have of people from other cultures and social groups.

To do this, students will work together in groups to create a story about two fictional characters with particular identities (for example, a young Kosovar named Valmir and a young Serb named Dragan).

Comment: Since this exercise deals with stereotypes and perceptions, it may be useful to remind students at the start of the activity that they must be respectful toward others, including toward the fictional characters in the story they create. As such, if an element of the story seems too controversial or disrespectful, you may have to intervene to tone it down.

It is also possible to limit the activity to just one character.

ACTIVITY INSTRUCTIONS

1. Set up the room: Participants form a large circle in the room.

2. Assign roles: One or more students play the role of observers. They stay outside of the circle and take note of the story to be created.

3. The other members of the group work together to make up a story. To do this, they use a ball to pass to one another. The participant who gets the ball must add on to the story.

4. Start the story with a statement such as ‘This is the story of Valmir, a young Kosovar…’ and pass the ball to a member of the group, who then continues the story by adding on elements about the character. Each person adds a few words or up to a few sentences before passing the ball to someone else.

5. The group continues the activity, working together to build a story.

6. After 10 or 12 turns, depending on how much participants have added, ask for the ball back and say ‘Valmir knows Dragan, a young Serb who has a story of his own…’. Then pass the ball to a member of the circle to continue Dragan’s story as part 1 of the activity by adding one or two sentences per person and then passing the ball.

7. The activity ends once both stories are of sufficient length and everyone has had a chance to contribute to both stories.

8. Class discussion and debate: After the activity is over, the teacher asks the group to tell the stories of Valmir and Dragan, recounting their respective lives. The teacher gets students to think about the stereotypes and prejudices contained in the students’ made up stories. The main points are written down on the whiteboard. The teacher can then lead a debate about stereotypes and perceptions of the other.

DOING THIS ACTIVITY ONLINE

1. The teacher creates a Zoom link and sends it to students.
2. Students use a word processing platform such as Google Drive or Framapad to write their collaborative story together in the same document. The story starts with a statement such as ‘This is the story of Valmir, a young Kosovar…’. The group continues the exercise, working together to create a story.
3. After 10 or 12 turns, depending on how much participants have added, the teacher intervenes and adds a new sentence: ‘‘Valmir knows Dragan, a young Serb who has a story of his own…’. The collaborative story starts again with a group member continuing the story of Dragan in the same way as in part 1 of the exercise, with each person adding one or two sentences.
4. The activity ends once both stories are of sufficient length and everyone has had a chance to contribute to both stories.
5. Class discussion and debate: After the activity is over, the teacher asks the group to tell the stories of Valmir and Dragan, recounting their respective lives. The teacher gets students to think about the stereotypes and prejudices contained in the students’ made up stories. The main points are written down on a whiteboard. The teacher can then lead a debate about stereotypes and perceptions of the other. The teacher can use an ‘online Post-It’ website as a virtual whiteboard (example: https://note.ly/) and take down participants’ observations.

ACTIVITY INTRODUCTION

Objectives:

• Understand the benefits and limits of images as a source of information.
• Channel your own perceptions of reality to challenge and deconstruct them.

In this activity, students examine an image and its possible interpretations. Participants will be asked to come up with a story based on a photo or short video.

The same image will be shown to multiple groups (either as a hard copy or a projection). Each group, working separately from the others, will then have to explain it or tell the story of the image.

Possible variations:

– When explaining the activity to the class, you can give them guidance on what type of story they should invent. For example, one group is told to give a more positive and happy interpretation, while another is told to present the photo as portraying a negative, or sad, event.

ACTIVITY INSTRUCTIONS

1. Choose the images: Teachers plan the activity in advance by looking for photos or videos that are open to interpretation or that may even have been manipulated or doctored in the news recently. You can also choose iconic photos that students might not know, such as the man standing in front of Chinese Army tanks during the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations in the People’s Republic of China.

2. Set up the room: Divide participants into groups and spread the groups as far apart from one another as possible so they cannot overhear each other.

3. View the photo: There are two options here: either you can project the image onto a screen so each group can see it and make up a story on paper or on the computer, or you can give the photo to each group individually, either on paper or on the computer.

4. Make up the story: Participants have free reign to interpret the image and invent/write a relatively short story based on their own inspiration or the emotion they have been assigned. The writing can take the form of an article or a narrative story.

5. Class discussion: At this point in the activity, the groups take turns presenting their stories to the other participants. This way, participants can see and react to the diversity of the results.

6. Check the source: Once the groups have finished, it is time to reveal the true story behind the photo and tell them the real context in which it was taken. This could also lead to a fact-checking session (see SHEET 8 – Fighting fake news and SHEET 7 – Thinking critically about information).

7. You can wrap up the activity with a class debate about using images as evidence and their potential for manipulation and interpretation.

DOING THIS ACTIVITY ONLINE

1. Teachers plan the activity in advance. They find the photos and send them to students.
2. The teacher creates a Zoom link (or a link to another platform) and sends it to students.
3. Once all students have joined the videoconference with the teacher, they can look at the photo again.
4. The teacher divides the students into groups. Each group meets in a ‘breakout room’, which is a function offered by most remote conferencing platforms (such as Zoom). Participants have free reign to interpret the image and invent/write a relatively short story based on their own inspiration or the emotion they have been assigned. The writing can take the form of an article or a narrative story. They work together in the same document using a platform such as Google Drive or Framapad.
5. Once they have finished writing, students return to the ‘main meeting room’, where the groups take turns presenting their stories to the class. This way, participants can see and react to the diversity of the results.
6. Once the groups have finished, it is time to reveal the true story behind the photo and tell them the real context in which it was taken.
7. You can wrap up the activity with a class debate about using images as evidence and their potential for manipulation and interpretation.

ACTIVITY INTRODUCTION

In this activity, participants play the part of a fact checker to determine whether a news item, particularly an image or video, is real. The aim is to demonstrate how images can be manipulated, taken out of context, or misinterpreted on the internet, especially on social media. Participants are asked to decrypt images that have been edited or manipulated (for example, by taking them out of context) in order to disinform users.

Possible activity variation:

• This activity can be done individually or in groups.
• One option to make the activity more dynamic would be to give each participant or group a certain number of images to fact check and, just for fun, present the activity as a competition to select the best fact checker.

ACTIVITY INSTRUCTIONS

1. Choose images: Teachers prepare the activity in advance by searching for photos and/or videos that have been in the news recently and that may have been manipulated or doctored

2. Set up the room: Participants will need computers and an internet connection to do this activity.

3. View the photo: Teachers put the participants into groups at computers. The activity can be carried out in one of two ways, either by giving participants the images to check directly – on a USB flash drive or on the computer – instructing them to find out the images’ origins, or by sharing the entire fake news piece, such as the article or social media post.

4. Checking the source: Participants can check the source of the image or photo by copying it to the search field in Google Images. Sites such as https://tineye.com/ and Google Images (https://images.google.com/) will let you do a reverse-image search of a photo. These search engines search the web for similar content, often allowing you to find the origin of the image.

5. Class discussion: Talking about the activity as a class gives participants a chance to react to the results. This is also a chance to remind students that checking images is a quick, easy, and useful way to avoid being manipulated.

DOING THIS ACTIVITY ONLINE

1. Teachers must prepare the activity in advance by finding photos or videos that have been in the news recently and that may have been manipulated or doctored and emailing them to students.
2. The teacher creates a Zoom link (or other meeting platform) and sends it to students.
3. Once students are in the video conference with the teacher, they can have another look at the doctored photo or video.
4. The teacher divides the students into groups. This can be done using the ‘breakout room’ function most videoconferencing platforms such as Zoom provide. The students do their web research in these groups.
5. Once they have found the photo’s source, the groups go back to the main meeting room and give their answer and explanation of how they performed the search as well as why they think the creator wanted to manipulate the photo.

ACTIVITY INTRODUCTION

This activity involves watching and analysing a television news programme.

Objectives:

• Understand how news programmes convey information.
• Understand what goes into creating televised journalism.
• Become familiar with the methods of creating and sharing information (professional journalism and its ethics, economic model, etc.).

Activity variations: You may want to show participants two different news programmes and have them compare them. Students can also watch a watch a news report from a TV news programme and one from an ‘infotainment’ outlet, such as BuzzFeed, on the same news topic. They can then compare the two ways of sharing information.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Set up the room: Set up the required viewing equipment.

2. Watch the news programme.

3. Divide students into groups and pass out worksheets: For this activity, teachers need to divide students into two or three groups. The students then answer the questions.

Teachers must prepare the worksheets in advance. They should contain questions about various aspects of the news programme watched in class → SEE ‘APPENDIX’ for a sample WORKSHEET.

4. Students answer the questions as a group: Each group produces one answer to each question, which is presented to the class by a single spokesperson chosen from the group.

5. Presentation to the class: This part will shine a light on the most important elements identified by students.

DOING THIS ACTIVITY ONLINE

1. Teachers provide students with links to the news programmes or videos and worksheets (see ‘Appendix’).
2. Students watch the news programme remotely.
3. Students are divided into groups to answer the questions. Students can do this remotely using sites such as Google Drive or Framapad, which allow them to collaborate on the same document.
4. Answers are presented to the class using a videoconferencing platform, such as Zoom. The teacher sets up an access link and sends it to students.
5. Only the group’s spokespeople can present responses to the class. The spokesperson should be chosen beforehand either by the teacher or by other members of the group.
6. The teacher can use an ‘online Post-It’ website, such as https://note.ly/, as a virtual whiteboard and then leads the discussion.

APPENDIX: WORKSHEET

CREDITS: Opening music: what impression does it give? Is it always the same? What is its purpose? What do the images or symbols used represent? What feelings do the credits seek to evoke? What is the colour scheme?

PRESENTOR AND SET: Do you know the presenter? How is he or she dressed? Are they sitting? Standing? What do they say to introduce the programme? What tone does the presenter use? How is the programme shot, using close-ups or wide angles? What is the presenter looking at?

CONTENT: What topics are announced? In what order (and why, in your opinion)? How are the topics presented (duration, tone, etc.)? What do the images show and for what purpose? What essential information to the presenters give?