s/o curriculum against being played in Eastern Europe

[EmilyGF]

On one of the big threads, someone mentioned how people in Eastern Europe (Bulgaria? Romania?) have training against "being played" because their country has been used so frequently in the past.

I can't remember which thread and it is probably buried by now, but if you are familiar with it, I'd love to hear more.

I remember the (little) training I got in this growing up was always in the supermarket checkout aisle, when my mom would point to the various magazines for sale and ask, "Look at the picture - what are they promising you? Now read the headlines and compare and contrast." We do the same with advertisements. But I'd like to hear about more robust approaches vs my minimalist one.

Emily

[Pam in CT]

I don't know if this is it, but over on the "CDC 6%" thread I fan-girled Molly McKew, a writer specializing on intelligence issues who worked for the Latvian government for ~5 years countering disinformation and has subsequently partnered with both private companies (including SM platforms) and non-profits like Stand Up Republic to address disinformation here.  She's *very* good -- sharply insightful, writes concisely and clearly, and has no tolerance for BS or both-siderism from, well, any side.

Here are Politico's archives of her articles on a range of subjects (she writes for a number of other outlets as well, and there are some great podcasts with her on the justsecurity and similar lanes).  She's about 5 issues into a series on countering disinformation in the US that pretty literally reads like curriculum; here is Part One.

And if you follow her on Twitter she regularly posts recipes for Irish sodabread and chocolate cake, close-ups of the glorious bounty of her WDC garden, expansive haunting wide-angles of the Idaho of her birth, and profiles in ordinary-day courage. People are complicated, however universal our instinct to cram them into boxes.

[73349]

We used "Made You Look" and are now starting Critical Thinking.

[*Jessica*]

I just came across this, probably while on a rabbit trail that began with Pam’s links.  I don’t know if it addresses what you’re looking for as I haven’t explored much, but thought I would share the link in case you wanted to check it out yourself.

https://mediaeducationlab.com/planet-propaganda

[Pam in CT]

3 hours ago, *Jessica* said:

I just came across this, probably while on a rabbit trail that began with Pam’s links.  I don’t know if it addresses what you’re looking for as I haven’t explored much, but thought I would share the link in case you wanted to check it out yourself.

https://mediaeducationlab.com/planet-propaganda

Thanks for this.

I just listened through and found it quite interesting (it includes the perspective of people in 6 different countries working for NGOs in what I would call, loosely, "recognizing-and-responding-to-being-played" in a collaborative project called "Mind Over Media."

I was intrigued that the first thing the groups were asked to consider and decide on was whether they wanted to keep, or revise for the purposes of their own in-country work, the initial project label, which was "countering propaganda." Some groups decided to keep the term "propaganda"; others chose differently (i.e. "media literacy", "critical analysis","manipulative marketing" based on what they saw as the associations (positive/negative, limited to state sponsorship or not) of the word "propaganda."

The dynamic of polarization came up repeatedly - participants who described their societies as polarized, and participants who described their societies as not particularly so, concurred that polarization serves as both an entry for, and a dissemination engine amplifying, being-played.

I found the participant from Belgium as *particularly* insightful on issues that exist in the US as well.