On August 08, 2023, a one-day training for 25 civil servants was held as part of the Information Resilience of Civil Servants project, made possible by the Academy of Ukrainian Press in partnership with the Media Program in Ukraine.
Manipulative content and disinformation are all too common in the modern information space. That is why infomedia literacy skills are vital for every citizen, including government officials and public servants.
The atmosphere at the beginning of the event can be described as a mixture of confusion and caution on the part of the participants. After all, the status of the officials prevented some of them from becoming full participants in the event. But as the training progressed, the participants' interest in finding answers to questions about media literacy was evident.
Thus, the idea of adopting a contract was positively received by the participants. The topic "Media Owners" provoked a particularly heated discussion in the general circle, and the exercises "Instruction", "Telefax", "Snowflake", "Transforming the News", "Hate Speech", "Kangaroo Meat", "I am Media Literate", etc. helped to deal with important issues of infomediary literacy and influence in practice.
The issue of stereotypes and hate speech was a stormy and even controversial one. The "Renting a Room" exercise allowed everyone to draw specific conclusions about the role of stereotypes and their consequences.
Expressing their opinions in the Circle of Impressions, almost every participant noted the relevance and importance of the training topic, and most importantly, its practice-oriented nature.
The training was quite dynamic, informative and intense! The training was structured in such a way that after each theoretical block, the participants performed a practical task and drew conclusions.
To help civil servants maintain the information front and build Ukraine's information resilience, the training participants were presented with a "Memo" and a media literacy website.
At the end of the training, Natalia Usenko summarized: "Today I realized that media literacy is a prerequisite for a high level of life, which should be in good shape 24 hours a day and constantly improving!"
