Under the UNESCO international Media and Information Literacy (MIL) week, Southeast Asia MIL conference was taken place from 28-30 October 2019 in Yangon, Myanmar. This conference provided an opportunity for youths and media representatives to learn and share their knowledge and experience with each other in the field of MIL.
Youths and media representatives from four ASEAN neighboring countries such as Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, and Viet Nam gathered together in Yangon to discuss on this cross-cutting topic. 15 youths from each country were selected to attend this conference accompanied by some media representatives. The youth participants were from 18-25 ages, exception based on work focus and expertise. They could be university students, professional journalists, and NGOs’ staffs.
Lately, youths are seen to actively involved in social matters, and the most popular tool they prefer is social media. They express their thoughts and ideas online by posting, commenting, sharing, and chatting in a certain social media account for the sake of social benefits. However, staying online is not always safe and secure. Youths sometimes easily fall for information disorder, and they are unable to distinguish those ton of information online.
The three-day conference offered a chance for youths and media representatives, who come from different background, to unite, connect, and learn from one anther the media transformation and situation in each society. It was actually a platform, where youths could absorb new information and concepts from media professional and experts.
The conference also included the experience sharing and training sessions, which strengthen youths’ understanding as well as build up their communication and cooperation. The topics and activities were really interested and fun that everyone felt satisfied. They could discuss on advertising campaign, and even produce their own advertisement. Moreover, they focused on some fact-checking indicators to verify the information, and they eventually formed into groups for action bound activity.
The preparatory workshop, which was conducted before the conference, allowed the participants from each country to discuss on the guiding questions and come up with the presentation format and data. This workshop also aimed to make sure that the key information and issues in each country had presented and addressed in the conference.
The following are reflections from two participants from Cambodia.
Ms. Heng Rachana, Member of Paññāsāstra University of Cambodia (PUC) Media 101 Club
Yangon, Myanmar: 60 young students from Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Myanmar participated in a three-day Regional Conference under the theme of “Youths Meet Media”. Working in collaboration with the Cambodian Center for Independent Media (CCIM), UNESCO, the German Foreign Office, and DW Akademie, the conference provided media experts, journalists, civil society organizations, activists and international students a platform to discuss, share experience and address challenges of Media and Information Literacy (MIL). By attending the conference, I learnt a lot of MIL skills from the people coming from different countries with different backgrounds, such as media experts and practitioners in Southeast Asia, where social media and online platforms are on the rise along with critical challenges. My 3 days at the conference were really amazing and I would like to share my knowledge and experience as follow.
Firstly, the World Café session is the most interesting session that I have never known before. World Café discussed three main topics, namely Digital Security, Hate Speech, and Traditional Media vs New Media. During the session, the participants rotated from one group to another to take part in the three discussion sessions. It was very amazing. At the end of the session, I got tons of new ideas from my colleagues. Secondly, sharing MIL experience media experts was also very interesting. The sessions of Creating Media, Truth or False, and Action Bound, for instance, allowed all participants and media experts to interact and practice MIL skills.
Additionally, in this training I had known the skill how to create powerful picture by Mr. Chandara Sor who is DW Akademie Cambodia. Next, I could learn how to evaluate the news which one is truth and which one is false by Ms. Nele Beck who is DW Akademie Asia. Last but not least, Action Bound is the most active sessions which allow me to answer all the questions in the app with my team that we came from different country to do some activities that related to MIL issue by Mr. Andrea Grigo who is DW Akademie Asia. Finally, it was about Open Space session during which we had free space to engage, discuss and find the solutions to solve MIL challenges in our countries.
All in all, Youths Meet Media was absolutely a great regional conference. I believe and I am committed to sharing what I learnt from the conference with students at my university and people in my community.
Mr. Oeng Chheng Ngoun, Member of Univeristy of Puthisastra (UP) Media 101 Club
The Regional Conference on Youths Meet Media held on October 28-30, 2019 in Yangon, Myanmar was truly an amazing opportunity to learn and to experience skills in Media and Information Literacy (MIL).
During the conference, I had opportunities to meet and discuss with media experts and international participants from Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar. The diversities of the conference did not only broaden my MIL knowledge, but also allow me chances to make new friends, learn different culture and understand the MIL concepts from different perspectives.
During the sharing sessions with MIL experts from DW Akademie and journalists from Myanmar, for instance, I learnt new skills to debunk disinformation and react to online harassments. All of these skills are critically important for youths to deal with current digital challenges in Cambodia. I hope more Cambodian students will also have opportunities to attend such an important regional conference, so that they can critically learn and develop more skills in MIL like I did.
