We were very happy to deliver the “Media Messages” workshop at the Mihai Eminescu high school in Constanta. Plainly, on 25 January, 32 students from a 10th grade class had the opportunity to attend our presentation and to engage with us in interactive activities.

To begin with, our volunteering team aimed to raise awareness among high school students about Media Messages and Fake News. In particular, we focused on critical thinking about the media and the information we consume. Indeed, the 40 minutes workshop encouraged participants to engage in a process of inquiry and self-discovery.

Firstly, our team talked about T4E and what we do. Then, each of us introduced ourselves and thereafter we explained the flow of activity.

Secondly, everyone participated in an Ice Breaker that we thought of in advance. Thus, Ibrahim, our volunteer, explained the rules. Also, he told the students to choose one candy from the box. At the same time, each colour was connected to a question:

• Yellow: Why would you unfollow someone
• Orange: What is your favourite social network and why
• Red: What would make an advertisement attractive for you
• Green: What would make an advertisement unattractive for you

Then, students wrote the answers to these questions on post-it notes and sticked them on a flipchart. Also, the flipchart was divided into 4 columns with questions written in advance. Then, Doina read the answers from the post-it notes to the class. As a result, everyone was impressed by so many wonderful ideas.

Thirdly, Bianca continued with a short presentation on:

• What is Media Literacy
• How media messages are constructed and how to deconstruct them
• Ways to produce media and information content
• How manipulative information and media is; how are these formally and informally produced, organized, and disseminated

The exercise

All of us then did an exercise to build upon the information presented earlier on. We proposed students to analyse and evaluate a Starbucks advertising, then write their observations about it. Students answered the helping questions included in a separate slide and deconstructed the messages behind the poster.

Finally, we were happy to have constructive feedback from the students. Some were very satisfied and others contributed with some suggestions. At this point, we use these suggestions to improve the activity. As a result, better activities help us achieving our common goal – to learn together in a pleasant and interesting way.

Location: Mihai Eminescu high school, Constanta, Romania

Date: 25th of January 2022