Manipulation, propaganda, lies – this and more were discussed at the two-day training “STOPmanipulator” with second- and fourth-year students who chose the elective discipline “Media Literacy and Information Hygiene”.
The event was organized by the Academy of the Ukrainian Press with the support of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom in Ukraine.
Trainers Valeriy Ivanov, Yulia Kulyk, and Maksym Zaporozhchenko shared insights into methods of influence, the peculiarities of propaganda and the media, in particular, they talked about practical tools for countering disinformation.
Professor and Doctor of Philology, President of the Ukrainian Academy of Journalism, Valeriy Ivanov says that he is skeptical about the idea that journalists need to teach media literacy, because it is for everyone, and journalists, according to him, are professionals who verify information, that is, media literacy is professional journalistic activity. He also emphasizes the importance of media literacy: “There is no information that does not need to be verified. There are no sources that can be completely trusted – any source, sooner or later, can make a mistake, consciously or unconsciously. Any information, especially that which can influence the audience, can turn out to be false.”
On the first day of the training, the speakers, together with the students, analyzed options for manipulating consciousness using real cases, and performed tasks in a game format, including creating news for a specific target audience using all methods to attract attention.
The second day of the training began with the game “Media Literate Mafia”, during which the “fact checkers” had to find the mafia in the role of “fakes”. In addition, they talked about how to become the person who cannot be manipulated, as well as about media diet and info detox.
Maksym Zaporozhchenko offered 10 practical steps for infodetox that will help significantly improve our infohygiene and clean up our own information space.
Among other things, Yulia Kulyk talked about the specifics of triggers, dividing them into their main types: visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and kinesthetic. In particular, the trainer also provided “top tips” on manipulations that effectively contribute to influencing the interlocutor.
“STOPmanipulator” is not about the ability to check every message, but about the feeling of manipulative influence, as noted by the manager of media educational programs of the AUP and trainer Maksym Zaporozhchenko. Students not only received theoretical and practical knowledge, but also had the opportunity to ask their own questions to professionals. The two-day training ended with the presentation of certificates.
Yevgenia Kostornova, a 4th-year journalism student, shared her thoughts about the two-day training “STOPmanipulator”: “I remembered one phrase from our trainer very well – that they want to teach us not how to check every piece of information in a row, but to teach us to feel that we are being subjected to some kind of manipulative influence. And, I think, this is very important and useful.”
Ivano-Frankivsk is the second stop for “STOPmanipulator” after Ternopil, next training awaits student journalists from Lviv, for whom other games and tasks will be prepared that will help them better understand the theoretical material and try out the techniques from the theoretical block immediately in practice.
