TASC (Think tank for action on social change) is the Irish partner in a new ‘Media Literacy for
Democracy’ programme designed to promote an effective media literacy strategy to tackle
disinformation, empower citizens to make informed decisions and protect democratic values.
The consortium brings together 6 partners from Ireland, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria and Poland who will
deliver 10 events across the participating partners’ countries.
The first of these events took place online on Friday 20 January and marked the publication of a
booklet aimed at informing citizens about the negative impact of disinformation on democratic
societies and the importance of media literacy to build civil society capacity to adapt to the digital
era and to protect democratic values. A recording of the launch event can be viewed online.
Phase 2 of the project will involve context analysis and stimulation of the debate among citizens and
consist of five local focus groups designed to understand how young citizens perceive the mis- and
disinformation phenomena and how they deal with them while using traditional and new media.
Phase 3 of the project will focus on the empowerment of communities through a targeted media
education for a more conscious and active participation in the public debate. This phase will include
3 international workshops where participants will interact with journalists, expert lecturers and CSOs
representatives with the aim to empower them to become more informed digital citizens and able
to transfer the acquired knowledge to their local communities.
With the goal to help define an effective European strategy to promote media literacy in the
Member States, a set of policy recommendations addressed to civil society, media workers and local
and international institutions will be drafted and presented to a wide audience during the project’s
final conference.
The project partners are FIDU (Lead partner, Italy), Foundation for Entrepreneurship,
Culture and Education (Bulgaria), TASC (Ireland), Fundacion Alternativas (Spain),
Universidad de Jaén (Spain) and Uniwersytet Szczecinski (Poland).
The project will run until the end of April 2024 and is funded by the European
Commission under the CERV Programme.
