RADAR-Youth Lab
Monday, 13.11.2023, 08:30-16:00
House of the European Union, Wipplingerstraße 35, 1010 Vienna
Fake news and disinformation are flourishing not only since the beginning of the COVID 19-pandemic and the war in Ukraine. External actors, such as Russia and China, have been trying to negatively influence democratic processes in the European Union and undermine the liberal model of democracy already for a long time. The same goes for internal actors, e.g. eurosceptical and extremist groups as well as certain media outlets, who contribute to spreading disinformation in the EU. These trends are further amplified by social media platforms and the use of artificial intelligence. Deep fakes, filter bubbles and echo chambers are used to deceive, influence and manipulate people’s perceptions, thus increasing social and political polarization in society.
In the run-up to the European Parliament elections in June 2024, a rise of disinformation campaigns and attacks on democratic and European electoral processes are expected – a risk which should not be underestimated and must be tackled in due time.
Disinformation – what does it mean? Who are the main actors spreading fake news within the EU? Which role does the EU play in the fight against disinformation? Which measures work well, where is the need for improvement? How strongly are we, as citizens, affected by disinformation in our daily life and what can every one of us do in order to recognise fake news and distinguish them from trustworthy information?
In our RADAR Youth Lab 26 young Europeans from 9 EU countries came together to discuss how disinformation affects democratic processes in the EU and to draft policy recommendations.
What is the aim of the Youth Lab?
The Youth lab is a one-day interactive workshop. It aims at giving young people the opportunity to discuss disinformation, its impact on democratic processes, especially with regard to the 2024 European Parliament elections, while also enabling a proactive participation through policy drafting. The participants work together in smaller groups as well as in the plenary. At the end of the workshop they are invited to collect and write down their ideas (= policy recommendations) on how to tackle and combat disinformation in the EU.
Two selected Youth Ambassadors will finalise and present policy recommendations worked out by the participants in the Vienna youth lab to high-level EU policy-makers and experts at a concluding conference in Brussels on the 1st and 2nd February 2024.
RADAR – Raising Awareness on Disinformation: Achieving Resilience
RADAR (www.tepsa.eu/projects/radar/) aims at raising citizens’ awareness on disinformation and providing an accessible public platform for debate on the issue.
This activity is a joint action between the Trans European Policy Studies Association (TEPSA) and the Austrian Society for European Politics / Österreichische Gesellschaft für Europapolitik (ÖGfE) (www.oegfe.at) undertaken in the context of the European Union funded project “RADAR – Raising Awareness on Disinformation: Achieving Resilience”.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
