The Austrian Press Council embarked on a journey around Europe to spread media literacy to students aged 16 - 18 years old. The purpose was to raise awareness of young people on the importance of ethical journalism and media self-regulation.
Dr. Alexander Warzilek, managing director of the Austrian Press Council, used the media literacy teaching materials developed by the German and Austrian press councils. These include 17 case studies designed to help strengthen the critical thinking and capacity of young people to differentiate between quality journalism and disinformation. Role-plays were developed to prepare proceedings of a fictitious Press Council.
Dr Warzilek visited seven schools in 13 months; Austria, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg and North Macedonia.
The classes included discussions on media freedom and disinformation within current media contexts, ranging from the current state of media in Northern Macedonia to the ethical situation of the media during the US election campaign and the situation in Great Britain after the Murdoch-scandal and its impact on the British self-regulatory landscape.
Most crucially, the students were given the ethical codes of their national media councils, which can be found on this website, to reenact the proceedings of the media council. Typically, the group members were assigned different parts: two members were the complainants, two represented the medium (as a journalist and editor in chief/publisher or media lawyer) and the others formed the deciding committee of the Press Council. Dr Warzilek, trainer of the role play, acted as the Head of the Committee.
Teachers around Europe involved in facilitating the workshops were encouraged to use the media ethics role plays from this website in the future as part of their media literacy work.