A two-day training “Tools for countering disinformation№ by the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center, organized with the assistance of the Atlantic Council and the Digital Forensic Research Lab, took place in Kyiv. Artem Korol and Alina Shevchenko, students of ZHT-01 group, as well as Alla Fedorуna, associate professor of the department of journalism and philology of the Faculty of FРSC of Sumy State University, joined the classes.

Speakers of the first day were Larisa Mudrak – journalist, crisis communications expert, and Lidia Smola – professor of NTUU “KPI”, political analyst, doctor of political sciences.

The aggressor country is waging war not only on the battlefield, but also in the information space. That’s why many Ukrainians fall for the hooks made by the enemy in order to destabilize the situation in society. Propaganda creates the image of a “non-existent majority”, which causes fear, panic, and gossip. All this happens simply because of the low level of media literacy in society. With the beginning of the war, which has been waged by the enemy since 2014, technologies have also developed. Therefore, after the full-scale invasion, we experienced the whole problem of “low-quality” news, manipulation, and propaganda. Ukraine and the world faced new challenges with a bunch of deceptive messengers and “bottled” social networks. One of the most difficult is countering disinformation.

During the classes, we analyzed the history of propaganda and learned how its strategies of psychological influence work; learned about the most popular channels of information used by Ukrainians; singled out modern methods of propaganda that can be used to engage in an information war with the enemy. During the lectures, interactive sessions were held, which made it possible to improve the perception of the material and immediately use their knowledge in practice and work in a team.

“Russian propaganda showed and continues to show its enormous power: parades, victories, talks about a huge army,” says professor Lidia Smola. - However, russian propaganda did not expect to encounter a "popular response".

Such an answer should be given all the time, and the training brought us closer to understanding how it should be done.

In general, constant improvement of professional skills by teachers together with students is the philosophy of the department aimed at improving the educational process.

Alina Shevchenko