MIL Goes Viral Project
MIL Goes Viral is a Deutsche Welle (DW) Akademie project that seeks to provide children and young people with attractive digital learning opportunities around media and information literacy (MIL). Launched at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to address misinformation, it works in a number of countries, such as Tunisia, Lebanon, Jordan, and Guatemala, creating projects that teach young people to critically assess news reports and counter misinformation and disinformation. Initiatives include activities such as the creation of apps and social media content by young people themselves. MIL goes Viral is part of the "Initiative for Transparency and Freedom of Expression: Media Resilience during Crisis" of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
Communication Strategies
Youth participation is key to the project in that media products are developed by youth using a human-centred design (HCD) approach. Young people as the intended audience are involved from the start and included in designing, developing, and testing the product and shaping the final result.
In Guatemala, DW Akademie worked with their partner organisation Comunicares to develop a role-playing game that promotes media skills such as learning to recognise and avoid disinformation. Launched in 2023 and based on the everyday lives of young indigenous people, the interactive app is called "Tinamit", a word meaning "village" in many Mayan languages. The game is set in a village where young players dive into the world of five young Guatemalan protagonists who represent five crucial skills that people need in order to learn MIL. Players have to make decisions about daily situations, and these decisions determine how the game proceeds. One question, for example, is how to deal with unserious job or training offers in the capital or abroad that appear on WhatsApp. The players interact and, based on their talks with the other protagonists, decide their next move. Several young people from four Mayan communities helped develop the app, with the game's four protagonists and the village itself based on their own experiences.
In Palestine, DW Akademie is working with PYALARA, a Palestinian non-governmental organisation that promotes MIL activities in the Palestinian Territories. With DW Akademie's support, PYALARA built a media literacy centre in Jaba, a small village in the West Bank. It is equipped with the latest interactive technologies that make learning fun. It focuses on four topics: hate speech, cyberbullying, digital security, and disinformation. As consuming media in a skilful way is not just about being able to critically question content but also about being able to create one's own content, visitors at the centre can try their hand at presenting news and, in workshops, learn about journalism and how to produce social media videos themselves.
In Tunisia, young people are developing social media content to teach peers about MIL. The project teaches Tunisian youth how to produce short video social media content related to MIL using animation, stop-motion, and on-camera reporting. Examples of issues they seek to address on Facebook and Instagram include how deep fakes work and how unchecked information can spread so quickly.
In Guatemala, DW Akademie worked with their partner organisation Comunicares to develop a role-playing game that promotes media skills such as learning to recognise and avoid disinformation. Launched in 2023 and based on the everyday lives of young indigenous people, the interactive app is called "Tinamit", a word meaning "village" in many Mayan languages. The game is set in a village where young players dive into the world of five young Guatemalan protagonists who represent five crucial skills that people need in order to learn MIL. Players have to make decisions about daily situations, and these decisions determine how the game proceeds. One question, for example, is how to deal with unserious job or training offers in the capital or abroad that appear on WhatsApp. The players interact and, based on their talks with the other protagonists, decide their next move. Several young people from four Mayan communities helped develop the app, with the game's four protagonists and the village itself based on their own experiences.
In Palestine, DW Akademie is working with PYALARA, a Palestinian non-governmental organisation that promotes MIL activities in the Palestinian Territories. With DW Akademie's support, PYALARA built a media literacy centre in Jaba, a small village in the West Bank. It is equipped with the latest interactive technologies that make learning fun. It focuses on four topics: hate speech, cyberbullying, digital security, and disinformation. As consuming media in a skilful way is not just about being able to critically question content but also about being able to create one's own content, visitors at the centre can try their hand at presenting news and, in workshops, learn about journalism and how to produce social media videos themselves.
In Tunisia, young people are developing social media content to teach peers about MIL. The project teaches Tunisian youth how to produce short video social media content related to MIL using animation, stop-motion, and on-camera reporting. Examples of issues they seek to address on Facebook and Instagram include how deep fakes work and how unchecked information can spread so quickly.
Development Issues
Media and Information Literacy, Youth
Partners
DW Akademie, Comunicares, and PYALARA. Funded by German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
Sources
"MIL goes viral": Learning about Media and Information Literacy with All Senses by Viktoria Kleber and Heidi Walsh, DW Akademie, May 5 2021; "Media and information literacy helps us young Tunisians develop important skills", DW Akademie, February 2 2023; and "MIL goes viral: The Guatemalan game app Tinamit", DW Akademie, March 1 2023 - all accessed on March 23 2023. Image credit: Comunicares
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