As part of the Empowering Europeans Citizens Against Disinformation project (Ref. 101081359), of which Lusófona University is a partner, two workshops were held with senior communities on the theme of "Detecting and avoiding the spread of fake news".
The first workshop took place on 9 November with senior students from UGIRT - Universidade da Grande Idade de Rio Tinto and USRV - Universidade Sénior Rotary de Valongo/Porto, senior universities based in Porto Metropolitan Area, and was led by researchers Ana Filipa Oliveira and Margarida Maneta. The second was run by researcher Claudilene Perim with the seniors who attend the Campo Grande Parish Social Centre in Lisbon. The aim of the workshops was to empower participants with a set of digital literacy skills that would increase their resilience to disinformation and stimulate their civic and democratic participation. Situations involving the manipulation of facts and opinions through disinformation that generate episodes of fraud, clickbait, online scams, among others, were explored.
Empowering Europeans Citizens Against Disinformation aims to increase civic and democratic engagement by equipping citizens with media literacy skills to build resilience to disinformation with a strong focus on transnational civil society strengthening. The long-term impact is that citizens, particularly those belonging to vulnerable groups, are empowered and increasingly engaged and participate in civic and democratic life.