By Rosemary Wayo
Tamale, Oct 30, GNA – African Youth and Adolescents’ Network (Afriyan-Ghana), a network of youth-focused organisations, has held a conference in Tamale to mark global Media and Information Literacy (MIL) week.
Stakeholders, including civil society organisations and students, dialogued towards finding practical solutions to information disorder in the country.
The event created a platform for participants to ask questions related to cyber security, traditional and social media, as well as possible ways to create media content.
The day’s conference was supported by Penplusbyte-Ghana, an organisation that promotes effective governance and accountability through technology.
Global MIL is an annual event led by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), and commemorated annually to review progress made in making media literacy accessible to people all over the world.
The 2022 MIL was on the theme: “Nurturing Trust: A Media and Information Literacy Imperative”.
Its global celebration is being hosted by Nigeria from October 24 to October 31.
Mr Jerry Sam, Executive Director of Penplusbyte-Ghana, who took participants through a session on the principles of MIL, said MIL sought to equip citizens to understand how the media worked to enable them to reflect on information they received.
He said reflecting on information enhanced citizens’ ability to make meaning out of media messages to avoid contributing to existing misinformation in the system.
He noted that accessing news from different news outlets ensured verified information, urging participants to seek information from different media houses and demand transparency from them through social media platforms to promote accountability.
Mr Fabian Japheth, a Focal Person of Afriyan-Ghana, said the Network, together with Penplusbyte-Ghana and DW-Akademie-Ghana, had delivered progress towards creating a society where people trusted and harnessed media information.
He said there had been a stabilised framework within the media space, adding however, that more input was needed to curb misinformation crisis.
Sylvester Jonathan, a participant and a second-year science student at the Northern School of Business, said he learnt a lot of new things about the media and how to use social media safely.
GNA