Multilingual feedback from our partners explaining their highlights, results and best practices from the project.

There are three dimensions to address the SMaRT-EU good practices in Portugal.

1 – The construction of the repositorium (http://smart-toolkit.eu/guide-on-disinformation-social-media2/ ) was a challenge. One of the main challenges was to create a participative dimension to the repositorium. We found out that the form is an interactive way to assure the collaboration of SMaRT-EU’s audience, in an easy and organized way. We think this is a good practice. Thus, in a truly collaborative way, the spreadsheet can be updated with inputs from the project’s team and other academics, but also from ordinary citizens and end-users. In this sense this is not a static repository and clearly aims to be an interactive source. This repository collects materials, in a systematised way, targeted at each of the end-user groups and related to the three main themes covered by the project. In turn, the new materials developed by the project team aim to provide useful and easily usable content for ordinary citizens or  diverse educational contexts. In line with the participatory approach that guides the project, we decided to ensure the possibility of each and any citizen to make suggestions for content to be included in the repository. 

2 – Workshops – the transposition of the workshop to an online model was maybe one of the most relevant challenges of the project. 

Portuguese PDFs available here: http://smart-toolkit.eu/participatory-workshops-portugal/

These are some of the reflections that came out of it:

• Journalism students: two levels of participation – The Portuguese team worked with journalism students that acted as project young researchers and at the same time as project participants. This was an interesting and fruitful approach. On one hand they started to work with the team adapting and reinforcing the workshop’s contents. They were important for instance specifically in the workshop on Influencers, also because one of them was an influencer himself and they brought refreshed knowledge to the team while they also improved their research skills. On the other hand, they were part of the team in the delivery of the workshops, acting at the same time as participants and actively participating in the conversations. This allowed students to gain more knowledge about the topics covered, to acquire research skills and also to test their ability to get actively involved in participatory action research projects.
• Technical difficulties – internet connection, availability of devices, technical conditions;
• Recruitment of participants – difficulties in recruiting older groups of participants. Online environment can be a demotivating aspect. However, this aspect can also be a positive, because we were able to approach in the same workshop people that were in different cities. If we were working in the offline world it would be unlikely to happen.
• For the older ones the encounter through digital tools allows overcoming the constraints of the encounter in presence, but does not replace it.In some cases, the barrier of the screen was an inhibitor. 
• Participants over 90 years old considered that they had never been on the internet, even though they used the internet for conversation during the pandemic;
• Some of the participants had their internet search experience during the workshops.
• Preliminary results indicate the existence of different positions based on gender, both with regard to the topics addressed and the online methodology implemented. It is suggested that in the groups with greater knowledge about the themes addressed, there was a male predominance in terms of participation; This was a group of people that are really interested in knowing more about these issues. One of them is a digital strategist and digital activist. The research team learned a lot with some of the participants. In these workshops participated 2 siblings and a grandparent; and also a father and a daughter. 
• In the groups coming from areas marked by social and economic inequalities, female voices dominated the discussions, especially regarding the concerns with the risks and potentialities of the social networks and in the curiosity for topics they did not know or wanted to know more about.
• Adults were more participative in the sessions than younger people. Participants presented practical examples from their daily life. The session about Influencers was the contrary, it was fully participated with young people. They prepared a radio show related with the themes of the workshops, particularly about Influencers. 

3 – Focus groups – the specific focus groups with intergenerational pairs were very rewarding for us, as we were able to see in a truly intergenerational perspective grandparents and grandsons interacting in helpful manners about digital uses, thoughts and future perspectives. 

Existem três dimensões para abordar as boas práticas implementadas ao longo do projeto SMaRT-EU em Portugal.

1 – A construção do repositório (http://smart-toolkit.eu/guide-on-disinformation-social-media2/ ) foi um desafio. Um dos principais desafios foi conceber esta ferramenta com uma dimensão participativa. Por isso mesmo, asseguramos que o formulário segue um modelo interactivo, procurando proporcionar a colaboração do público, de uma forma fácil e organizada. Julgamos que o modelo permite uma prática que também favorece a palavra das pessoas que interagem com projeto. Assim, de uma forma colaborativa, o formulário pode ser atualizado com contributos da equipa do projeto e de outros académicos, mas também de cidadãos comuns e utilizadores finais. 

Neste sentido, este não é um repositório estático e visa claramente ser uma fonte interativa. Este repositório recolhe e organiza materiais, de forma sistematizada, dirigidos a cada um dos grupos de utilizadores finais e relacionados com os três temas principais abrangidos pelo projeto. Por sua vez, os novos materiais desenvolvidos pela equipa visam fornecer conteúdos úteis e de fácil utilização para cidadãos comuns ou contextos educativos diversos. Em linha com a abordagem participativa que orienta o projeto, decidimos assegurar a possibilidade de cada cidadão fazer sugestões de conteúdos a serem incluídos no repositório. 

2 – Workshops – a passagem dos workshops para um modelo online foi talvez um dos desafios mais relevantes do projeto. 

Os PDFs portugueses estão disponíveis aqui: http://smart-toolkit.eu/participatory-workshops-portugal/

Estas são algumas das reflexões que resultaram das sessões:

• Estudantes de jornalismo: dois níveis de participação – A equipa portuguesa trabalhou com estudantes de jornalismo que atuaram como jovens investigadores e ao mesmo tempo como participantes. Esta foi uma abordagem compensadora e produtiva. Por um lado, começaram por trabalhar com a equipa de investigação, adaptando e reforçando os conteúdos dos workshops. Foram importantes, por exemplo, especificamente no workshop sobre Influenciadores –  também porque um dos estudantes era um influenciador -, e trouxeram conhecimentos atualizados à equipa, ao mesmo tempo que melhoraram as suas capacidades de investigação. Por outro lado, fizeram parte da equipa na realização dos workshops, participando ativamente nas discussões. Isto permitiu que estudantes adquirissem mais conhecimentos sobre os temas abordados, competências de investigação e também que pudessem testar a capacidade de se envolverem ativamente em projetos de investigação participativa.

• Dificuldades técnicas – ligação à Internet, disponibilidade de dispositivos, condições técnicas;

• Recrutamento de participantes – Houve alguma dificuldade no recrutamento de grupos de participantes mais velhos. O ambiente online pode ser um fator desmotivador. No entanto, este aspeto também pode ser positivo, porque foi possível juntar no mesmo workshop pessoas que se encontravam em cidades diferentes. Se estivéssemos a trabalhar no mundo offline, seria pouco provável que tal acontecesse. 
• Para os mais velhos, o encontro através de ferramentas digitais permite ultrapassar as limitações do encontro em presença, mas não o substitui. Em alguns casos, a barreira do ecrã era um inibidor. 
• Os participantes com mais de 90 anos consideraram que nunca tinham estado na Internet, apesar de terem utilizado a Internet para conversar durante a pandemia;
• Alguns dos participantes tiveram a sua primeira experiência de pesquisa na Internet durante os workshops.
• Os resultados preliminares indicam a existência de diferentes posições baseadas no género, tanto no que diz respeito aos tópicos abordados como à metodologia online implementada. Sugere-se que nos grupos com maior conhecimento sobre os temas abordados, houve uma predominância masculina em termos de participação. Este grupo em particular era constituído por pessoas que estavam realmente interessadas em saber mais sobre estas questões. Uma delas era um estratega digital e ativista digital. A equipa de investigação aprendeu muito com alguns dos participantes. Nestes workshops participaram 2 irmãos e um avô; e também um pai e uma filha. 
• Nos grupos provenientes de áreas marcadas por desigualdades sociais e económicas, as vozes femininas dominaram algumas das discussões, especialmente no que diz respeito às preocupações face aos riscos e potencialidades das redes sociais e à curiosidade sobre temas que não conheciam ou sobre os quais queriam saber mais.
• Os adultos foram mais participativos nas sessões do que os mais jovens. Os participantes apresentaram exemplos práticos da sua vida quotidiana. A sessão sobre Influenciadores foi diferente, tendo os jovens participado em pleno. Em resultado das sessões, os jovens prepararam um programa de rádio relacionado com os temas abordados, particularmente sobre os Influenciadores. 

3 – Grupos de foco – os grupos de foco específicos com pares intergeracionais foram muito gratificantes, uma vez que pudemos ver numa perspetiva verdadeiramente intergeracional, com avós e netos a interagir e entreajudar-se de forma útil sobre os usos digitais, os seus pensamentos e perspetivas futuras sobre as questões abordadas. 

The highlights of SMaRT-EU for Pontydysgu were the intergenerational and intercultural aspects of the project as well as the technical practices.

Intergenerational and Intercultural learning.

Although based in Spain, Pontydysgu’s project manager lives and works in Wales UK. Rather than being problematic, we were pleasantly surprised that the circumstances helped to foster not only intergenerational conversations, but intercultural ones too. We found that participants in Wales were keen to hear what their Spanish counterparts thought and were interested in seeing examples of fake news, propaganda and clickbait in other cultural and language contexts. We therefore note that the intercultural aspect of the project is a good practice as it increased interest and engagement amongst the participants. Some of the slides from the participatory workshops are particularly helpful in fostering this engagement, particularly those showing or linking to statistics and comparisons of country data.

Technical Practices

Pontydysgu are responsible for the technical infrastructure of the website and the B-learning course. We have a wealth of experience in creating online learning content and so-called massive open online courses (MOOCs) and their derivatives. We were able to bring this experience to the fore in this project combining the powerful tools of H5P content creation with the LearnPress course software to produce a user friendly and interactive course.  

Mediawijs would like to address 2 dimensions to the best practices for Belgium, the b-learning course and the organisation of workshops during these times of the COVID-19 pandemic.

B-learning course

The biggest task for us in this project was the creation of a short online course for educators.

Before starting the development of the course we decided that it was important that participants could take the course at their own pace, that it was free to access by all, that participants should be free to follow only part of the course – choosing the topic that is most interesting for them, and that we should provide the possibility to quickly get some theoretical concepts and/or to dive deeper providing extra exercises and tools.

The content of the course relies on many of the other outputs and lessons learned from the SMaRT-EU project, as well as the experience and knowledge of all partner organisations; for example the workshops and focus groups conducted with educators, youngsters and elderly people. You can also find some of the products that were developed during the project in the course, there are booklets on fact checking, expert interviews and a repository of existing tools.

With a short course, one of the challenges is choosing what to bring and what not to bring. What do we consider to be essential parts of information when working on misinformation and fake news? And how do you bring this information in a language that is easy to understand for many? Eventually we created 5 chapters in the course: 

• “Introduction” where we briefly describe the topics that will be covered in the course, how the course works and which partners created the course
• “What is fake news and why do people believe it” where we explain some theoretical concepts on fake news, and equally as important we explain why people believe news that is not trustworthy. We also put the participants to work and suggest a discussion activity they can do with the public they work with
• “What is the role of social media” where we dive into the mechanisms behind search engines and social media platforms. We also challenge the participants to try some things for themselves.
• “Different approaches for different groups” where we discuss points of attention when working with elderly people or youngsters or intergenerationally.
• “Our own power and responsibility” where we emphasize that each and every one of us can have an impact and play a role in this story.

Organising workshops and activities in Covid times

Just like everyone else during covis times we had to rethink the way we work and interact with our target groups. Organising workshops, especially with the elderly, online was quite challenging. By involving people they trust, like volunteers or family members we succeeded in reaching them and in organising workshops.

If we talk about the outcomes of the workshops, one of the things that surprised me most was that elderly people do not consider all digital actions as being online. Whats’apping for example for many is not a digital action. Which means that they often underestimate their online presence and capabilities. What surprised me as well was the distrust this group had vis-a-vis traditional media, often resulting in a drawback from news.

As part of the project we conducted a series of intergenerational mini focus groups.

We conducted this study in collaboration with the Estonian influencer and journalist Keili Sükijainen. We produced three media and information literacy videos that can be used as an intergenerational learning tool. The videos cover topics on exposure to news and fake news, intergenerational communication habits and influencers. The videos contain certain topics and amounts of information that was in some points more familiar to teenagers and in certain points more familiar to the elderly. For these reasons the videos can be used as a tool to spark intergenerational discussion over the aforementioned topics. These videos are accompanied by questions that for example a grandchild and grandparent can ask each other after they have watched these videos together.

We tested this tool as a component in intergenerational and professional focus groups. Project partners conducted altogether 16 intergenerational mini focus groups with family members and six focus groups with adult professionals.

The general objective was to find out if intergenerationally shared news experience can be used to promote the resilience of information disorder, (for example fake news) and promote overall news consumption.

The videos were tested in intergenerational and professional focus groups.  There are three highlights from the results;

– Understanding of news is limited with conventional genres and forms and this is a problem. Although people generally perceive news as new information they also have a rather conventional understanding of what news is. This understanding often stems from traditional media, news, dramas and other such formats. This is important as exposure to new information, but also to false information, takes place in several forums and genres on multiple platforms. People do not perceive exposure to new information as news on social media or in personal interaction. Therefore it is essential to discuss this topic in schools and media and information literacy training. Both young and elderly need to understand that they are exposed to all sorts of new information that can be trustworthy but can also be misleading and harmful. The perception of diversity of new information is the basis for a personal evaluation of information quality and this is the basis of any media and information literacy activity.

– Secondly, intergenerational information exchange promotes both news consumption and verification of any new information. The generational differences in knowledge enrich the interpretation of information. Nevertheless this information exchange has prerequisites; first intergenerational communication is effective only between acquaintances from different generations. For example it functions well between grandparents and grandchildren from the same family but probably it would be complicated between unfamiliar teens who visit an elderly people’s home for the first time.

The second prerequisite for intergenerational information exchange is the arrangement and agreement on communication means.  The most preferred way for discussion over the news is in real life face to face. This way of communication became exceptionally valued and appreciated during Covid-19 social distancing times. As several families communicate digitally, the selection of communication channels needed to be openly discussed. In other words it is wise to ask what platform and channel to use at which time. The elderly are usually relatively open-minded towards video and chat applications if their close ones have assisted them in using those apps. The main barrier to using video calling or chat apps is that they do not know the most suitable time to reach out to younger relatives. They feel that contacting at an inappropriate time will interfere with young peoples daily lives. This issue could be solved by simple discussion and agreement about suitable times for communication. Overall we can conclude that intergenerational communication is an effective way to promote everyday news consumption, it diversifies the understanding of news and it also grounds the risk for misinterpretation of information. It also helps to verify the information. All of this increases resilience towards the harmful consequences of information disorder.

– The third finding we would like to highlight is that influencers are not a new phenomenon.

The topic not the person promotes the discussion. Media practitioners have long been interested in how effective the use of influencers is in delivering messages. Based on our results we can say that influencers, especially intergenerationally well-known influencers, helped to deliver the message. However the same effect would be achievable with celebrities, actors, musicians, opinion leaders and why not even grandchildren. The importance is the trustworthiness of the particular influencer.

In intergenerational discussions influencers’ messages were recognized just as discussion points familiar to both the grandparent and grandchild. Therefore for promoting the intergenerational information exchange, the reliable message is the central connection point to spark the communication. However it may equally be the current most popular ticktock video or traditional news story or newspaper article or television show.

Esmased tulemused YouTube’i videotööriista testimisest 

Tartu Ülikooli teadlased katsetasid YouTube’i videotel tuginevat tööriista põlvkondadevahelistes vestlusgruppides, kus paarivestluses osalesid lased koos oma vanavanematega. Ühtekokku toimus 16 põlvkondadevahelist vestlusgruppi viies riigis. Vestlusgrupis näidati koostöös sisulooja Keili Sükijaineniga loodud YouTube’i videoid, mis pakkusid vanavanematele ja lastelastele ühist jutuainet.  

Vestlusgruppide analüüsi põhjal saab teha kolm põhilist järeldust:  

Esiteks, arusaam uudistest on sageli väga ühekülgne ning traditsioonilise meedia keskne. Aga inimesed puutuvad uudiste kui uue informatsiooniga kokku paljudes erinevates meediakeskkondades (nt sotsiaalmeedias või privaatsetes sõnumirakendustes) ning ühekülgne arusaam uudisest kui sellisest võib omakorda luua soodsa pinnase valeinformatsiooni „õnge“ minemisel. Seetõttu on meediakirjaoskuse teemalistel koolitustel rääkida osalejatele ka uudistest kui uudsest informatsioonist laiemas kui vaid ajakirjandusliku žanri käsitluses. Kui inimene mõistab uudiste kui uudse informatsiooni mitmekesisust ehk erinevaid vorme milles see võib esineda, on ta ka teadlikum märkama võimalikke infohäireid (nt valeuudiseid, desinformatsiooni) ja end nende eest hoidma.  

Teiseks, põlvkondadevaheline infovahetus edendab nii uudiste tarbimist kui ka valeinfo äratundmist, olgu see mistahes vormis. Erinevate põlvkondade teadmised täiendavad ja rikastavad vastastikku ning toetavad valeinfo äratundmist, kuivõrd liituvad noore ja vanema põlvkonna infokogemused. Kuid väga oluline on see, kuidas infovahetus toimub.  

Kui infovahetus vanavanemate ja lapselaste vahel võib toimuda väga hästi, kuna nad on omavahel varem tuttavad, siis näiteks teineteisele täiesti võõras seenior ja teismeline ei pruugi sugugi jõuda avatud mõttevahetuseni.  

Teine oluline eeldus põlvkondadevahelise info vahetamisel on kokkulepped. Üllatuslikult ei pruugi seenioridele olla probleem kasutada videorakendusi (nt Whatsapp, Facetime), eriti kui seda on eelnevalt koos nooremate sugulastega harjutatud kasutama. Takistus on sootuks mujal. Seenioridele on väga oluline, et oleks kokku lepitud, mis ajal ja millises kanalis on kellelegi kõige mugavam suhelda, kuna nad ei taha kuidagi sattuda ühendust võtma ajal, mis noorele ei pruugi sobida. Sestap on põlvkondadevahelises suhtluses hästi oluline leppida kokku millal ja millisel viisil omavahel suheldakse.   

Kolmandaks, influencerid ehk suunamudijad ehk mõjuisikud ei ole midagi uut ka seenioridele. Vanaemad ja –isad jälgivad päris tihti noorte hulgaski populaarseid blogijaid ja sotsiaalmeediakuulsusi. Samas ühiseks aruteluteemaks sobivad ka kümnendite eest inimesi mõjutanud kuulsused (nt Twiggy, Biitlid või Marilyn Monroe). Seega ei ole oluline, milline inimene on parasjagu kuulus – ühise kõneteema leiavad erinevad generatsioonid ka omavahel päevakajalistest teemadest kõneledes.  

Highlights and Results in Croatian https://djecamedija.org/smart-eu/ 

Although ERYICA didn’t participate in all the activities developed in the framework of the project, we did organise two focus groups with youth information experts. These experts work with young people daily and have long experience in building their media and literacy skills.

During the sessions we gathered really valuable feedback that helped us to draw the needs of the newer generations in this regard. The experts pointed out a change not only in media literacy skills of young people but in the youth’s literacy in general, making it harder for them to play an active role in society in the years to come. This shows a great contrast with the other year group in this project (+50) whose, despite their media literacy skills are not as built as their successors, they have a vast experience in reading long papers and writing- abilities that are starting to get lost with the younger generations.

Should society adapt to the new generations and make things easier for them, or should they catch up with the established pace and habits?


Besides the focus groups, ERYICA has been leading in the dissemination activities. By introducing SMaRT-EU to dozens of youth information services all over Europe and stakeholders and institutions working in european youth policy, we have been able to showcase the project in different spheres and make it more accessible for both educators and policy-makers.