Media Literacy and Youth empowerment through media work has been one of our focus points in recent years and EmpowerMediaNetwork (EMN), the media division of YEPP Europe has been developing capacity building programmes, workshops, trainings and youth exchanges since 2001.

EMN, headed by Andrea Serafini, based in Turin – Italy, is an innovative form of local and transnational media activities by and for young people. EMN operates to engage young people in active media work and supports them in developing a “critical media literacy”, which means developing a critical, independent and discerning view of all the inputs coming from the media. By exploring the use of media and the social networks, EMN promotes and enhances active citizenship and freedom of opinions.

Find out more on the EMN website.

Find some of Andreas Serafini’s tutorials in the Learning Space.

Hate speech

EMN also tackles the issue of hate speech in their learning programmes. For example, the international youth exchange “A Visual Narrative Approach to Explore Identity and Counter Hate Speech” (2019) covered the topics Identity, Active Citizenship, Fighting Discrimination, Countering Hate Speech, Promoting Social Inclusion and creating awareness of the connected with European Citizenship.

The project addressed the large consumption and widespread of internet based contents by young people by fostering their ability to read and understand the visual narratives, often pervaded by discriminatory, racist, inaccurate and manipulative contents. It aims at empowering young people as creator of meaningful contents rather than being passive consumers.

Fake News

From 2017-2019 YEPP EUROPE has been developing the project Fake Off – Fostering Adolescents’ Knowledge and Empowerment in Outsmarting Fake Facts. The project has been developed in consortium with partners from five countries an its goals are:

• to increase the participation of young people in the critical debate of news and Internet content;
• to develop young people’s capacity to evaluate published information and act accordingly;
• to allow a systematic approach to digital literacy for young people and professionals working with them.

Find more information on www.fake-off.eu