Surfing the network has become an unseparable part of our life. Sometimes, it seems that it’s a safe journey, however, we often fail to notice both undisguised and hidden menaces like yellow journalism, fake photo and video materials, hate speech, bullying and even cyber wars. Taking the abovementioned into account, one more club – Media Experts – was formed as part of Ayb School’s Project-Based Learning.
The club was led by presenter, editor and journalist Aram Abrahamyan. “I am confident that nowadays people must be provided special tools to navigate the modern media world and pick the right news,” Mr. Abrahamyan said, when commenting on the idea of club formation. The sooner people get these tools the less they will be deceived and disoriented, according to him.
Hence, our media experts undertook to discover these tools in order to provide users with the possibility to avoid media traps.
With the purpose to boost the audience’s media literacy, the club created an Armenian language website that contains articles, videos, podcasts and other materials telling how to spot internet dangers and avoid them. All materials were created by the club members after a thorough research, as result of which numerous articles titled ‘How to prevent internet addiction’, ‘Top fake news of 2017-2019’, ‘In which cases and how freedom of speech can be restricted’ and others can be found on Media Experts’ website.
The club members are not going to be satisfied with what has been already achieved: they are planning to make the website available in Russian and English; upload new materials created by the students, graduates and experts; organize tours to get acquainted with the work of various media agencies; establish new ties with the schools studying media literacy; visit other schools and make presentations; help junior schoolchildren understand what media literacy is.
Mary Ghulyan, Media Experts club member
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