From 1 December to 5 December, a citizen journalism LTTA was held in Trakai, Lithuania. It was part of the CJ Superheroes project, which has the ambitious goal of training adults on topics such as combating disinformation, ethical principles in working with information and creating journalistic content, and techniques for creating journalistic materials. The main goal of the LTTA was to serve as a testing phase of the lesson plans developed in the initial phase of the CJ Superheroes project. The lesson plans are divided into three modules: 1) Media Literacy for aspiring Citizen Journalists, 2) Media Production Ethics & Digital Citizenship for aspiring Citizen Journalists and 3) Media Production Skills and Storytelling for aspiring Citizen Journalists.
During the first day of the LTTA, the participants discussed the differences between traditional and citizen journalism and compared the training, the tools used and the role of traditional and citizen journalists. They analysed case studies of citizen journalism in order to highlight its importance for modern society – in terms of spreading information, delivering key messages and navigating public opinion. The training day concluded with a non-formal activity focusing on the media ecosystem, the function of the core media ecosystem actors and communication channels and the interactions between them. In the evening the participants from a total of 5 countries – Germany, Lithuania, Spain, Romania and Bulgaria joined fun teambuilding activities, aimed to foster the group dynamics.
During the second day, the participants discussed the importance of fact-checking and analysed recent media articles, engaged in a non-formal activity about the fundamental media ethics principles and learned more about digital citizenship by outlining the rights and responsibilities of digital citizens. The first intercultural night with presentations of Bulgaria, Lithuania and Spain sparked the curiosity of the participants who shared more about their traditions, local foods and historical past. In the morning of the third day the LTTA continued with two very interesting sessions about the legal issues that citizen journalists should be aware of in terms of ethical content creation. They learned more about freedom of speech vs freedom of the press, copyright, contempt of court, defamation and privacy and explored existing legal cases.
In the afternoon the group worked on its own advocacy campaigns and dove deep into the principles of storytelling. After discussing the story elements, the participants developed narratives on various topics such as environmental sustainability, gender equality, social inclusion and mental health. The second intercultural night with presentations of Germany and Romania followed in the evening. The fourth day was filled with creative activities related to audio and video creation and street interviews in the city of Vilnius. During the final activity day, the participants were introduced to various AI tools that can be used in their practice as citizen journalists. They also finalised their advocacy campaigns by including different tools to improve the user engagement with the campaigns’ messages. In the last two sessions, the facilitators gathered participants’ feedback about all training sessions and organised a closing ceremony, during which each participant received a YouthPass certificate acknowledging their involvement in the LTTA.
All LTTA sessions were facilitated by representatives of the partner organisations of the CJ Superheroes project:
- KulturLife – leading partner (Germany)
- FECE (Bulgaria)
- Tavo Europa (Lithuania)
- Moviendote (Spain)
- Monomyths (Romania)
The CJ Superheroes project is funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ Programme.