Empowering Europeans towards a Media-Savvy Citizenry

<< Background >>Disinformation becomes a problem that is involving nearly all levels of public life in Europe as the spread of false content, especially on social media, is threating the future of our democracies and is lowering trust in public services, media, but also in the education sector. Answers to the topic are often not coordinated among various stakeholders and measures limited to regional or national level. CheckMate wants to reply to those needs by raising awareness among key stakeholders fostering social dialogue and enabling new and innovative solutions on European level. Furthermore, the project wants to improve media literacy of adults thanks to the development of an e-Training course and a fact-checking tool. The cooperation of various key stakeholders and the new offers contribute to turn alienation into constructive engagement reducing the negative consequences of disinformation in Europe.<< Objectives >>1) Tackle disinformation in times of crisis, while bringing best practices and current international law related to disinformation closer to European citizens.2) Strengthen media literacy of adults by training participants in innovative strategies and use of digital tools to evaluate critically media content.3) Raise awareness and promote social dialogue among stakeholders aiming at developing new interdisciplinary solutions to effectively answer to disinformation and suggest relevant policy recommendations.4) Promote the use of (advanced) new technologies by stakeholders and participants and promote the use of new tools in adult education and beyond to tackle disinformation.<< Implementation >>The project has implemented the following activities: 1) Conducting focus groups and interviews with key stakeholders to get an overview of current best practices all over Europe and collect recommendations by key stakeholders and adults on how to respond to current challenges.2) Creation of a stakeholder network and organisation of digital information sessions and workshops with civil society and other stakeholders to raise awareness using the newly developed Metaverse Platform. 3) Development of an e-training course and web extension tool consisting of 9 modules and following piloting and testing process involving adults from all partner countries.4) Implementation of public events and dissemination activities on social media to promote project results and create awareness among general public<< Results >>The key results of the project are: 1) CheckMate Best Practice Guide available in six languages on tackling disinformation and strengthening media literacy including an overview of legal framework in Europe.2) Creation of interdisciplinary CheckMate network to respond to versatile topic of disinformation and execution of info sessions/workshops promoting social dialogue involving 166 key stakeholders and adults to discuss on innovative solutions to fight disinformation.3) Production of an open-source e-Training course consisting of 9 modules to strengthen critical media literacy skills for adults including piloting phase reaching 360 adults4) Development of technological tools (metaverse platform and web extension tool) to promote the use of technology in combating disinformation and create new ways of engaging learners.5) Creation of a policy recommendation toolkit based on project implementation experiences on ways to tackle disinformation.