Media Detective: Cross-border Strategies Against Fake News and Misinformation

In today's world, unchecked posts and calls to action on social media have become a pressing issue affecting both younger and older generations alike. Among these demographics, young people in particular are highly active on these platforms. Thus, our primary objective is to provide support and efficient tools, especially to the youth, for identifying fake news and phishing attempts, a problem prevalent beyond borders. The core mission of our project is to strengthen critical thinking skills among young people, developing their ability to critically assess digital media content. The rapid expansion of the online world, which transcends geographical boundaries, is happening at such an accelerated pace that the formal education system often struggles to respond and adapt promptly. Collaborating across borders allows us to pool our expertise and resources to address this issue more comprehensively, as we aim to provide support that is adaptable and accessible to educational institutions on both sides of the border, through a digital exhibition easy to implement. Teachers, young learners, and schools will directly benefit from these resources. By empowering educators and students, we aim to create a ripple effect of informed and digitally literate citizens in our program area. Our aim is to provide educational institutions with innovative tools they can incorporate in their activities, engaging teachers, students and schools in the development process, to ensure that the program is not only innovative but also useful for them. Specifically, we plan to develop an interactive exhibition, harnessing the modern digital advancements of the 21st century, which will provide a comprehensive perspective on the challenges posed by fake news, the history of misinformation, its dangers, and contemporary issues. We intend to focus mainly on young people and employ digital tools closely related to the subject matter. Through this project, we aim to reach and engage 3,000 young high school and university students in each country, bringing about the following key transformations that will benefit them: - enhancement of media literacy and critical thinking skills; - the ability to distinguish real news from fake news, to identify and prevent phishing scams and media manipulation. - mitigation of digitalisation-related risks and an improved internet security awareness; - improved employability through the development of key competencies and basic skills, particularly critical thinking and media literacy, decreasing the risk of marginalization; - a reduction in the acceptance of pseudoscientific information. The project builds on the experience we share with our partner, HAHA, collaborating on both sides of the border on the topic of fake news. We have found that young and older populations on both sides of the border share similar levels of digital literacy, making them equally susceptible to dangerous digital content. Proximity to the border pose unique challenges, including tensions between Hungarians and Romanians, inter-Romanians and inter-Hungarian tensions, often exacerbated by fake news and misinformation regularly circulating on social media. Our project seeks to improve relations between communities residing in these border regions, reduce prejudice among the younger generation, and strengthen cooperation between the two regions. The project's innovation comprises two key components. First, we intend to shed light on the issue in a context close to young individuals and provide immediate solutions to address the problem. Secondly, we will develop a digital toolset for educating young people, making the subject matter more accessible and comprehensible. Moreover, the project will contribute to the broader recognition and validation of informal and non-formal learning, as the educational process on media literacy extends beyond the boundaries of traditional classroom education. At its core, our proposal is built on the belief that it is necessary to rethink traditional approaches to educating young people. In practical terms, the integration of media literacy education and the development of critical thinking within the curriculum heavily relies on the willingness of educators and educational institutions. Unfortunately, teachers are often not equipped with the necessary training and resources for this and the inclusion of this vital subject is not compulsory in teacher training programs at universities in Hungary and Romania. We break from the formal educational setting, recognizing the fact that educating young people about the manipulation and misinformation prevalent in their virtual world, especially on social media, need not to occur within the confines of a formal classroom setting. Acquiring and enhancing certain fundamental skills is not always most effectively achieved within the traditional school system (Rethinking Education: Investing in skills for better socioeconomic outcomes, European Commission, 2012)

3000 secondary school and university students in the Bihor county will develop their critical thinking skills and media literacy, their abilities to distinguish real news from fake news, to identify and avoid phishing scams and media manipulation, by visiting the interactive fake news exhibition and engaging in people-to-people activities. The partner will install the exhibition in 5-10 institutions throughout 12 months. 3000 secondary school and university students in the Hajdú-Bihar county will develop their critical thinking skills and media literacy, their abilities to distinguish real news from fake news, to identify and avoid phishing scams and media manipulation, by visiting the interactive fake news exhibition and engaging in people-to-people activities. The partner will install the exhibition in 5-10 institutions throughout 12 months.