NEWS - Media Literacy

Expected Outcome:

The Call for Proposals will result in:

• creating or scaling up cross-border collaborations that support impactful and innovative approaches to media literacy based on the latest best practices across national, cultural and linguistic borders. Those collaborations shall focus on eligible countries that face particular challenges in terms of media literacy, exposure to disinformation and foreign information manipulation and interference campaigns, and/or in terms of threats to media pluralism and independence.

• developing and deploying media literacy tools, trainings, campaigns, events and/or other initiatives targeting specific audiences, including but not limited to groups with limited media literacy skills or access. Priority should be given to initiatives with the potential to reach a broad audience, and/or targeted groups currently underserved by media literacy programmes;

• assisting media literacy professionals in adapting their practices to the rapidly evolving technological development, media formats and changing media consumption patterns (including the growing role social media and influencers in news consumption, AI-generated content, algorithms, etc.) while contributing to societal resilience against disinformation and foreign interference and information manipulation.

Objective:

This action encourages innovative cross-border media literacy projects and practices across Europe among various population segments, focusing in particular on non-educational settings, addressing the challenges of a continuously changing digital media landscape, enhancing societal resilience and preparedness against information integrity risks. The selected projects should aim, among others, at developing a better knowledge of the evolving information ecosystem and information integrity risks among citizens, as well as a “know-how” with concrete, practical skills to navigate the information space effectively and safely.

Scope:

Support is foreseen for innovative and collaborative projects with clearly defined objectives to advance media literacy, including with a view to strengthen societal resilience against disinformation and foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI). Innovative approaches may include novel or original ideas, methods, tools, or modes of implementation, whether online or offline

All proposals should seek to:

• provide solutions that enable citizens to develop a critical approach to the media, and to recognise, prepare for, and appropriately react to disinformation, information manipulation techniques, and other challenges in the online media environment, focusing in particular on non-educational settings,

• address the constantly changing media ecosystem including developments such as changing news production and consumption patterns, the evolution in media formats, the growing role of online platforms, artificial intelligence,

• involve relevant actors such as media and information integrity professionals, content creators/influencers, gamers, artists, and other players that work on producing news media content,

• cross cultural, national and/or linguistic borders to strengthen collaboration between Member States and other eligible countries,

• build on and scale up best practices from recent media literacy projects.