Building a trustworthy social media sphere: countering disinformation on social media for young Europeans

Expected Outcome

The projects are expected to have the following impacts:

• Increased awareness about risks related to information integrity and boosting media literacy skills through high-quality, influencer- and youth-led content: By producing compelling, multilingual content fronted by trusted and relatable creators, projects will measurably boost young Europeans’ ability to recognise, analyse and counter information integrity risks including misleading information—evidenced by clear reach, engagement and learning metrics across at least thirteen Member States.
• New and lasting cross-sector, cross-border collaborations: The creation of new partnerships between influencers, information integrity professionals including fact-checkers, media literacy professionals and/or civil society organisations will allow each community to enrich its expertise with new insights, while expanding its geographical reach. Importantly, the consortium should aim to create a community that has a lasting impact beyond the duration of the project. To this extent, the funded projects, once awarded, shall establish contact with each other and seek active exchange.
• Heighten standards of information integrity, especially among the community of influencers: The involvement of influencers and young Europeans in a campaign raising awareness about risks related to information integrity and good practices to counter them is expected to raise related standards both within the community involved in content creation, and beyond.
• Positive social and well-being outcomes: Greater awareness of manipulative online content among young Europeans will also contribute to mitigate certain mental health pressures, curb polarisation and encourage socially responsible behaviour online, contributing to a more resilient European digital sphere.
• Sustainable knowledge-sharing: The project will leave a legacy by codifying successful content, formats, and dissemination methods through an evaluation system with relevant metrics.

Objectives

The objective of this call is to foster the awareness and resilience of young Europeans related to information integrity risks, strengthening relevant media and digital literacy skills. This to equip them with the skills and knowledge to navigate safely and critically in the online information space and participate in society as active and informed citizens. This should be achieved by developing engaging, multilingual content tailored to the consumption patterns and interests of young Europeans. Ensuring a broad coverage of at least thirteen EU Member States is a key criterion for the proposal evaluation.

Specific objectives

• To involve young Europeans and influencers in a participatory process to create engaging content on the risks threatening information integrity. The content should include ways to identify, understand and counter such threats while promoting critical thinking among young Europeans aged 15–30.
• To disseminate content across all at least thirteen EU Member States through a media literacy campaign that leverages creative storytelling by mobilising influencers, who will work in full editorial independence, supported by digital media and artificial intelligence.
• To foster new collaborations between information integrity professionals (e.g. fact-checkers, media literacy practitioners, civil society organisations) and influencers, so that they can join forces and learn from each other on ways to promote media literacy and critical thinking among young Europeans. Such collaborations should also aim to support the creation of a virtual community allowing influencers to easily connect with fact-checkers, media literacy practitioners and other information integrity professionals across Europe.
• To collect and share lessons learned on how influencers can integrate information integrity best practices in their work, including by raising the trustworthiness of their own content. This should involve an evaluation of the reach, impact and effectiveness of the conducted campaigns by the consortium partners.

Scope

The call seeks to fund two innovative projects that implement the following activities in all covered Member States.

1. Design a participatory process involving young Europeans and influencers

The consortium will design and implement a participatory process to allow young Europeans to share their ideas, questions and concerns related to the online information space and information integrity, involving them in the creation and dissemination of engaging content to address information integrity and safety online. The objective is to ensure strong involvement of young Europeans as well as influencers at all stages, from design to delivery. This aims to ensure that the multimedia content, and the campaigns designed to disseminate it, are as targeted and relevant as possible to young Europeans’ interests while also leveraging on the experience, knowledge and follower base of influencers.

2. Produce youth-oriented content related to the threats to information integrity and ways to counter them

The consortium will produce engaging multilingual multimedia content that caters to the needs and preferences and consumption habits of 15- to 30-year-olds across all covered Member States.

3. Develop a wide, cross-national and inclusive media literacy campaign

The consortium will design and implement a comprehensive digital media campaign that will ensure an EU-wide and as broad as possible dissemination of the multimedia content produced under point 2. The campaign will also serve to maintain an overview of all activities related to the project and to collect relevant metrics on reach and impact (audiences reached via the different channels used, number and quality of interactions with the campaign content, etc.). The campaign’s key messages will support the objective of this Call for proposals, which is to promote critical thinking and responsible online behaviour among young Europeans aged 15–30 by helping them identify, understand and counter the mechanisms that threaten information integrity.

4. Ensure compliance with ethical guidelines and standards on information integrity

The consortium will apply ethical guidelines and standards on information integrity in their partnerships with influencers and in the whole process for producing and disseminating multimedia content. This will ensure that the output is accurate, trustworthy, ethical, and privacy-respecting.