Last month we ran a media literacy competition asking you to help us select a library that would receive a $500 donation courtesy of our partner, NewsGuard. Libraries from across Europe sent us their media literacy stories and the impact they have had on their communities. With so many fantastic entries it was a challenge to choose just one winner, but we are delighted to announce that the prize will be awarded to, the Municipal Library of Prague, the Czech Republic, and their “deFacto” workshops! Congratulations to the team that designed and implemented this project!

The deFacto workshops

The team at the Municipal Library of Prague identified that media and information literacy skills are an issue in the Czech Republic especially among teenagers. As the Czech Republic has a dense library network, the Municipal Library of Prague decided to take advantage of this for their project. They teamed up with information studies and librarianship experts at Masaryk University in Brno and Learning Designer Brano Frk to create open access media literacy workshops.

With teenagers as the main audience of these workshops, which aspects of media literacy did the Municipal Library of Prague want to focus on? The top 3 were: cyberbullying, critically evaluating media content, and knowledge about Deepfake videos. Teenagers got to interact with these topics by using their smartphones and through game-based learning, bringing media literacy close to them while maintaining a playful aspect. So far, the workshops have been tested in partnerships with schools in Prague and 300 participants have completed them with positive feedback!

deFacto across the Czech Republic

The deFacto workshops are an open access tool designed by librarians, for librarians with the objective of making media literacy education easily accessible in Czech libraries. The Research Library in Hradec Králové have started running deFacto workshops and have worked with 150 participants including a group of deaf children. The team from the Municipal Library of Prague have also presented their initiative – in collaboration with Transitions (TOL), a non-profit organisation based in Prague – to eight Bosnian teachers and at the meeting of Czech agricultural librarians in December 2019.

We hope to see this initiative – and other media literacy projects – in more libraries in the Czech Republic as well as Europe!

Background 

NewsGuard offers librarians a practical tool for news literacy. Its browser extension rating and providing Nutrition Labels for news websites can be downloaded onto computers used by patrons at no cost to libraries thanks to support from Microsoft. NewsGuard is expanding its news literacy efforts in 2020 and in the years ahead and has created a Board of Advisors for its News Literacy programmes. Our Director, Ilona Kish, has joined this board along with other representatives from schools, libraries, universities and non-profits in the U.S and Europe. She will advise NewsGuard on the development of its global media literacy programme with more than 700 public libraries worldwide and resources as well as its core product.

NewsGuard has committed a donation of $500 per board member to a school, library, or nonprofit of our choosing in recognition of the support they provide.

Read more about PL2030’s partnership with NewsGuard here.