Real Media Literacy for Fake News World – A Series of Workshops Concluded by SDJF

The Sri Lanka Development Journalists Forum (SDJF) joined hand with the Center for Media and Information Literacy (CMIL), the American Corner and NewseumED Washington to conduct a workshop series on Media Literacy recently. The purpose of the workshop series was to equip citizens with knowledge, skills and tools necessary to critically analysis media content they consume and to make them more vigilance to fake news, misinformation and disinformation.

SDJF made this timely intervention when the misinformation and fake news have taken the center place, destroying the trust on media as well as on public institutions. Thus, the need to find credible information is of critical importance for Sri Lankans.

More than 300 participants including young journalists, university students, youth, community leaders and civil society actors benefited from the series of six workshops held in Hotel Galadari in Colombo and, Hotel Suisse in Kandy from 3rd -5th March 2020. The sessions were conducted by Ms. Jessi Hollis McCarthay, an accomplished outreach educator of Newseum ED and facilitated by SDJF.

Participants were formally welcomed and introductory remarks made by Prof. Padmasiri Wanigasundera, Chairperson of SDJF. Mr. Mohamed Azad, Program Director was involved in adapting the content to suit the local audience and, Ms. Sumudu Perera, Program Manager of SDJF served as the main coordinator of these workshops. Three main modules. i) Media Ethics, ii) Identifying fake news with the tools called “ESCAPE” and, iii) fake news propaganda tool called “SEEDS” were covered in the workshops using interactive and practical tools. During the session, participants were given the opportunity to analyses some media content using the tools learnt to assess whether this news are fake or real.

It was encouraging to see the appetite for media literacy among diverse fractions of the community participated in the workshops. In addition to representatives from most of the mainstream media and, mass media higher educational programs, some representatives from deaf community and LGBTQ+ members were also actively participated and contributed in the workshop. At the end of each workshop, the participants were awarded with certificate of participation.

Participants from various communities were giving their comments on this workshop:

“My take home message is SEED. I wasn’t aware about propaganda before.” – Shehan Peiris, Applied Psychologist-

“This is very timely organized workshop” – Saahithiyanan, Helvitas-

“We need this kind of workshops island wide, specially we rarely get this kind of opportunities in Kandy” – Damayanthi Ramalingam, Founder/CEO of iSeeQ Private Limited –

“I would like you to request workshops related to fake news and misinformation in all universities around Sri Lanka, so students like me will get this knowledge” –Student from Galle American Center-

SDJF will join hands NewseumED and host a series of Webinars to disseminate the knowledge and skills among a wider community in the coming months.