Overview
WIRES-CROSSED is a two-year KA2 Erasmus+ project that aims to build a community media framework that equips local communities with all the knowledge, skills and competences to develop, manage and maintain a comprehensive media service to local residents. The project will pursue an asset-based community development approach to harness the assets within the local communities where partners are based and bring them together under a common community media banner intent or promoting real news about the local area to residents.
Over the course of the project, the implementing partners will develop a Community Audit Toolkit and Report documenting their local community’s media literacy that will then pave the way towards the production of a wide array of tools and resources to build their capacity in the field. These include:
- Community Media Skills Development Resources
- A Toolkit of Media Moderation Resources
- An Induction Training for Adult & Community Educators
- An online Interactive Learning Portal
Aims & Objectives
Empower citizens and bring them together under a community media banner intent on promoting real news about their local community and area.
- Empower communities across Europe to take back control of their news feeds by supporting them to produce reliable community media content
- Nullify the impact ‘fake news’ have on our communities.
- Harness the potential of available digital and social media platforms to give a voice back to local communities and to promote community cohesion in tackling the ‘fake news’ epidemic.
- Enrich democratic processes, encourage community cohesion and increase civic engagement of all cohorts of society
Methodology
The project will pursue an asset-based community development approach Identifying and empowering citizens within the local communities to take an active role in promoting real news about their local area and most importantly tackling fake news. The project will commence with partners taking conducting a local media literacy audit, using a participatory research method, to document the digital competence of their local communities. The findings of the research will help them structure the learning resources they will then develop to equip and support a local group of individuals to start their own community media outlet. Said resources include a Community Media Skills Development course, a selection of resources and tools along with an introductory training programme for adult and community educators. All aforementioned tools will be made available and accessible via the user-friendly interface of WIRES-CROSSED’s online Interactive Learning Portal.