EAVI attended the Propaganda Lab and Media Meets Literacy Conference organised by Evens Foundation in Sarajevo from the 19 – 21 September.

Beginning with the 2-day Propaganda Lab, conducted by Professor Renee Hobbs (USA) and Igor Kanizaj (Croatia), participants had the opportunity to dissect many forms of contemporary propaganda, using tools such as Screencast-O-Matic to narrate content and video annotation application VideoAnt. EAVI was also called upon by Professor Hobbs to present our Beyond Fake News infographic to the participants, which was then used to help us categorise various types of news, misinformation and propaganda.

Following the Lab, the 2-day conference saw us attending multiple breakout sessions and keynotes on topics ranging from fake news and fact-checking to visual literacy, the MIL curriculum, mobile journalism and building trust in the media.

The conference ended with a presentation of the Evens Prize for Media Education. ZaLab (Italy) took away the main prize and the special jury prize went to Djeca Medija (Children of Media), whom EAVI interviewed earlier in the year. The closing address, given by Julian McDougall of Bournemouth University, left us with some questions deserving further reflection around cultural inclusion and media literacy’s roots in cultural studies with a nod to the recently deceased cultural theorist, Stuart Hall.

We are truly thankful to Evens Foundation and their supporters for organising an inspiring conference and giving us the opportunity to engage with colleagues from all over Europe and beyond and discuss some of the most pressing issues facing media literacy.

Check out the conference program and participants here.

Propaganda Lab with Renee Hobbs and Igor Kanizaj

Mikko Salo from Finnish fact-checking initiative Faktabaari