On 19 – 20 May, the Kėdainiai Regional Museum hosted a seminar on “Identifying Propaganda and Disinformation. Resilience to Hybrid Threats”.
Participants of the seminar were teachers and school leaders from comprehensive education institutions with Tolerance Education Centers. The two-day event focused on historical themes whose evaluation and relevance are linked to current events.
Prior to the seminar in Kėdainiai, teachers took part in a survey on how to identify disinformation and propaganda in public media. The results of the survey were discussed at the seminar. Members of the educational community listened to a lecture by Dr. Inga Zakšauskienė, a lecturer at Vilnius University, on “How authoritarian regimes use historical narratives to strengthen their disinformation communication. A case study of the collapse of the USSR”. An interactive game on the relations between two neighboring countries (democratic and non-democratic) was organized for the representatives of the educational community. According to one of the organizers of the event, Viktoras Daukšas, head of DebunkEU, it is crucial for everyone, both young and mature, to analyze examples in the media, to take part in interactive games and to identify disinformation. This makes the topic of propaganda all the more relevant in the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Summing up the seminar, Ronaldas Račinskas, Executive Director of the International Commission, appreciated the active participation of teachers and expressed his hope that more seminars and workshops of this kind will be held in the future.
Thirty six participants attended the seminar. The event was organized by the Secretariat of the International Commission in cooperation with DebunkEU and the Kėdainiai Regional Museum.
Photos of Arūnė Vaičiūnaitė – Levuškinienė