In an interactive session at the Nabadisha Community Centre, children demonstrated their learning to combat fake news, misinformation and media bias. , Photo Credit: Debashish Bhaduri
Sumit Kumar Chowdhary, a Class IX student, received a WhatsApp message stating that if a Rs 500 note has a green stripe, then the note is fake.
The 14-year-old along with his friend Krishna Shaw decided to fact-check it from the Reserve Bank of India website and found that the information was fake.
Similarly, another group of children in the same age group tried to fact-check the claim that after the success COVID-19 Vaccination in India, mobile service providers are starting three months free recharge to the people.
During a two-month-long program at the Nabadisha Community Centre, next to Kolkata’s Taratala police station, around 30 children aged 12 to 14 are being trained in media literacy to combat misinformation. The community center is being run by the Vikramshila Education Resource Society, while the media literacy program for children is run by Alt News, a well-known fact-checking website.
“Children were introduced to the concept of misinformation and its components, taught skills to identify information received from social media as true or false based on available cues, and identified sources of misinformation in the context of the media business. and how it affects. Information is delivered to digital media users,” said a media release by AltED, an initiative launched by Alt News.
A pre-pilot was conducted at Nabadisha Center as well as at Batanagar Boys’ High School in February 2023, in which around 30 children of class IX participated. In addition to these pre-pilots, AltED has conducted group discussions with children between the ages of 12 and 14 in about five schools, including private schools as well as government schools in Kolkata and surrounding districts.
Alt News Co-Founder Prateek Sinha explained, “The Pre-Pilot Program is an activity-based curriculum designed and taught by AltED practitioners to foster media literacy among youth using critical thinking and empathy. To develop knowledge, mindset and skills. Hindu.
The children were exposed to identifying fake news, as well as media biases, as well as the media business itself. At an interactive booth at the Nabadisha Community Centre, three children narrated the story of setting up a mall in a city from three different perspectives, one driven by profit, another driven by political power and the third from the perspective of citizens displaced by the initiative.
Alt News Co-Founder Prateek Sinha during an interactive session as children showcased their learnings to combat fake news and misinformation. , Photo Credit: Debashish Bhaduri
On May 15, students who participated in the pre-pilot program at the Nabadisha Center held an exhibition describing what they had learned. “The event was completely student-led, with charts and interactive booths displaying the interpretation of children’s learning through the workshop and interactive booths set up throughout the centre,” the release said.
The program also made an effort so that children can differentiate between different types of sources. For example, a game was devised between two groups of students who engaged in false information such as ‘Taj Mahal Tejo Mahalaya (a Hindu temple)’. One group of students, who were reporters, had to identify the correct source to fact-check the information, while another group of students, who were in the audience, cross-checked the information brought in by the reporters.
“We are approaching more schools and are also working on finalizing the syllabus. After that, the matter of scale will come and then we will approach the government so that they can include it in their regular curriculum,” Mr Sinha said.
Emphasizing that looking at information more critically is a life skill, he said the idea of including children in the age group of 12-14 years was because this period is considered as formative years .
“It’s also the age group before them [the children] Start using smartphones before you jump into the chaos of information and the exact time when intervention should be made. So that they have some qualification which helps them to deal with the world of fake news,” Mr. Sinha said.