Doing research is rewarding. Sharing it – and how we go about it – with students is even more so.
On 21 January, around 100 students at Junior College participated in a session on media literacy and misinformation led by Megan Mallia, a research support officer within the University of Malta’s Department of Media and Communications, in the context of her work with the Mediterranean Digital Media Observatory (MedDMO).
The hour-long session covered a variety of topics, including social media and AI-generated content and how the web archive can be used to save and browse pages and posts.
Ms Mallia also presented the latest research ( produced by the Department of Media and Communications as part of its activities within MedDMO, which looks into bogus copyright complaints made to Google by bad actors to get legitimate content removed from search results.
Students were encouraged to think about how the term ‘fake news’ can be problematic in that it is increasingly used as a censorship tactic against the media, with local examples including the dehumanisation campaign against Daphne Caruana Galizia and the prime minister’s recent comments about online investigative platform The Shift.
The session ended with a simple message: ‘In a world that sometimes feels hopeless, don’t lose hope. Be critical, not cynical.’
This was the second of such activities held at Junior College. Last year, another group of students was given tips on how to spot AI-generated images and what to look out for when evaluating a source. Similar activities take place in Greece and Cyprus.
MedDMO, the Mediterranean Digital Media Observatory, is an EU-funded project bringing together journalists, media literacy experts and researchers from Malta, Greece and Cyprus – as well as the AFP – who work to foster a healthier information space in the Mediterranean and beyond. For more information on MedDMO’s activities, visit the consortium’s website and follow it on Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn and Bluesky.