As part of EAVI’s series of interviews with our partners’ organisations, we interviewed Katerina Chrysanthopoulou, co-founder of the newly-established Media Literacy Institute in Greece.

1. Please provide contact information of your organisation (contact person/headquarters etc).

Media Literacy Institute (MLI) is located in Athens. Our founding members are Sissy Alonistiotou and Katerina Chrysanthopoulou (me). Sissy is a political scientist and journalist, with long experience in managing weekly and monthly magazines. I am a cognitive scientist, writer and interpreter.

2. Brief history of your organisation (how it started, what was the idea behind its creation?)

MLI was formally established in 2017 but has existed informally since 2014. It was formed from two initiatives: Journalists about Journalism (JAJ, 2014) and Stories Media Lab (SML, 2015).

JAJ is an online newsroom established in 2014 which promotes investigative journalism, targets cases of misinformation and propaganda, mobilises individuals to critically assess and evaluate domestic and international news both online and from printed material.

Stories Media Lab is a project that studies how audiences of different ages perceive and understand written texts in order to “retell stories already told”.  This way, we can study how people at various ages understand the content of written discourse, giving the participants the chance to create their own multimedia stories.

3. What are the core values of your organisation? What are your priorities?

In Greece formal education in schools is heavily content-based. Young people have to deal with masses of information, but they do not really learn how to use this information, how to evaluate and work with it, or how to critically analyse and benefit from it. Skills like critical thinking, analysis, evaluation, deduction, abstracting, finding the suitable sources and, in general, media literacy skills, are not given enough attention in the formal education.

However, it is crucial to develop these skills, both for academic pursuits and also to engender civic engagement, so that people are able to make the right decisions, as citizens in society or in local communities. One way for democracy to mature is to ensure that citizens are well informed and comply with ethical standards of communication. News literacy skills (understanding the difference of information from misinformation when reading the news, for example) play an important role in democracy and should be protected as a fundamental right of all citizens.

This is especially important for Greece today, as there is a lot of misinformation and propaganda, especially on online media.

Our priority is to disseminate Media & News Literacy in theory and practise. MLI reveals how media messages are constructed and used and empowers users so that they become critical of their sources. MLI provides guidance, skills-training, online social behaviour tips and necessary verification tools so that readers can differentiate information from opinions, news from “fake news” or biased online/offline content and be able to wisely access information from various sources. Through our activities, we promote mindful interaction with media and access to reliable info.

4. Please tell us about the main field of work of your organisation (advocacy and campaigns or social services)?

Our first idea was advocacy and lobbying campaigns promoting media literacy in formal and informal education and in life-long learning practices. However, in Greece it is rather difficult to reach out to the relevant stakeholder (e.g. the Ministry of Education). Public administration is influenced by each government, the strategic agenda is changing all the time, there is no fixed formal interlocutor, so it is like speaking in the void.

MLI participates in various events and debates. For example we intervened in the My Story Project (Media and Migrants) event in Athens in May 2017 or recently in a public discussion on Fake News (Who will stop them?) in July 2017.

5. The impact of the project in your local community, national/EU level. If possible please provide some measurable indicators (surveys, feedback, etc).

As at the moment a lot of our interaction with our audience takes place online (particularly through jaj.gr), we measure our impact by means of number of visitors, discussions and debates, positive feedback that we are getting online or during the events, or studies that we carry out (e.g. the influence of external factors on Greek public opinion).

MLI is also involved in VAN Observatory project (Violence Against Newspersons). The project brings together many journalists and opens debates on how misinformation can affect the journalist’s work.

6. What are your next projects and activities?

We have in mind a number of immediate activities. We have an ongoing cooperation with  Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and European Communications Institute (ECI).

Media Literacy  as a concept is not included  in the Greek national agenda for formal education, while Media Education has started gaining ground in schools. Moreover, more updated information, concerning contemporary MIL policies world-wide is always needed in Greek, so we plan to generate more content, disseminate good practices and translate more MIL materials into Greek.

Additionally, we aim to develop a platform (in a form of a newsroom) for young people, with the goal to inform and entertain them, in a friendly manner.  We also plan to implement programs specifically targeted to adults, in order to promote awareness of all citizens’ right to digital civic engagement and to inform participation in democratic procedures.

7. What are the constraints and limitations that your organisation faces in your country?

As I already mentioned above, the knowledge gap and the lack of funding. We cannot have full-time personnel, everything is urgent, but so far we have managed so we are optimistic that we shall succeed in reaching our goals!

8. Does your organisation aim to influence the policy/ decision-making process in your country/at EU level? If so, how do you achieve it?

At the moment we do not have concrete plans: we have not decided if we can become a policy point  in the field of NGOs or if we will implement one-to-one lobbying actions.  Certainly, we wish to disseminate best international practices and provide content for the Greek readers, for example, by  contributing to the translation of  EU policies and international policies in Greek. We have also started networking with Greek and European organisations to cooperate on policy-making issues.

It is important that ongoing activities of Media Literacy Institute mature and we think that over time we shall reach a better decision on how to propose changes for our national agenda for formal education.

With thanks to Natallia Bialiayeva.