Resilience: Civil Society for Media Free of Hate and Disinformation
Nine media development organizations in the Western Balkans and Turkey have joined forces under an EU funded project ‘RESILIENCE: Civil society action to reaffirm media freedom and counter disinformation and hateful propaganda in Western Balkans and Turkey’.
The project’s (2020 – 2023) primary focus is on:
- strengthening capacities of media CSOs and grassroot organisations through networking and cooperation regionally to improve understanding of disinformation and hateful propaganda models of media and communication in the Western Balkans and Turkey (WBT);
- the ability of media and civil society to respond to and debunk false information, particularly online;
- building the resilience of citizens against disinformation through the promotion of joint solution involving media professionals and other stakeholders.
The project is implemented in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey.
The three-year project is coordinated by the South East European Network for Professionalization of Media (SEENPM), a network of media development organizations in Central and South East Europe, and implemented in partnership with: Albanian Media Institute in Tirana, Foundation ‘Mediacentar’ in Sarajevo, Kosovo 2.0 in Pristina, Montenegro Media Institute in Podgorica, Macedonian Institute for Media in Skopje, Novi Sad School of Journalism in Novi Sad, Peace Institute in Ljubljana, and Bianet in Istanbul.
Updates on project activities, outputs and products will be featured on the websites and social media channels of the partner organisations, including the SEENPM websites www.seenpm.org and www.cimusee.org.
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Project execution
What will the project do?
- Research reports
- An analysis ofpolitical-economic basis of hate, disinformation and propaganda models of media and communication;
- Analysis of hate and disinformation narratives;
- Research (based on opinion polls) on media trust and media-gender issues;
- Countering hate, disinformation and propaganda
- Production of 6 TV shows informed by the research findings and aimed at raising the awareness among media audiences of key media freedom and freedom of expression issues;
- Regional workshop for creative teams to learn from EU experts and peers and apply fresh creative solutions to national countering narrative campaigns;
- Disinformation countering campaign to run on social media in all seven target countries;
- Editors’ forum (titled “Editors for Trust”) to underline the potential power that editors hold in restoring media trust, and to exchange experiences on approaches to developing sustainable business models that promote quality, trusted journalism as a means of countering disinformation;
- Study visits to EU countries for editors from the region;
- Production of cross-border stories using constructive journalism approach
- Promoting of media and information literacy (MIL) in small towns and rural areas
- Sub-granting scheme aimed at capacity building of grassroots organisations to engage in the promotion of MIL in small towns and rural areas that may be particularly vulnerable to disinformation and propaganda.
- Advocacy
- Preparing overview on regulatory and self-regulatory framework in beneficiary and selected EU countries to serve as a basis for advocacy activities
- National advocacy activities, with findings and good practices identified in the previous activity presented to national stakeholders invited to public debates in each beneficiary country and supported by guest speakers from the region or EU member states;
- Conclusions from public debates and analytical activities will be summarised in country specific set of recommendations and distributed broadly
Results
The results of the research are presented in several e-publications:
- seven national reports, published in September 2020,
- regional overview ‘Hate and Propaganda Models of Media and Communication In The Western Balkans And Turkey‘ by Sandra B. Hrvatin, Brankica Petković and Sanela Hodžić, published in November 2020,
- e-book with the same title, ‘Hate and Propaganda Models of Media and Communication In The Western Balkans And Turkey‘, which includes regional overview and seven national reports, published in November 2020.
Partners:
The regional program 'ODPOR – Civilna družba na Zahodnem Balkanu in v Turčiji za svobodne medije brez dezinformacij in sovražnega govora' is implemented with the support of the European Union by partner organizations SEENPM, Albanian Media Institute, Mediacentar Sarajevo, Kosovo 2.0, Montenegrin Media Institute, Macedonian Institute for Media, Novi Sad School of Journalism, Peace Institute and Bianet.