In collaboration with Fundación León and the U.S. Embassy, NAMLE’s Board VP — Stephanie Flores-Koulish — shares U.S. strategies for media literacy with Argentinian educators and teens, addressing the rising challenge of misinformation.
Representing NAMLE in Argentina last month was a highlight of my year. Fundación León, a non-governmental organization (NGO) in North West Argentina received a grant from the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires to run a program on media literacy for teenagers to help counter the growing impact of mis- and disinformation. The program ran across two months where teenagers in the city of Tucumán and in the surrounding areas received instruction delivered by a local journalist, and the concluding event was the presentation I delivered last week to a group of about 200 teens.
My week started with a visit to the U.S. Embassy to meet the partners there along with Fundación León’s Executive Director, Diego Aguilar, and another two organizations involved in the grant and delivering media literacy respectively. From there, the Buenos Aires media literacy organization, Faro Digital invited me to their offices for lunch and a meeting with their staff, which included some virtual attendees zooming in from as far as Tierra Del Fuego! The conversation was truly collaborative given that I heard about the ways that their organization is working with youth and teachers across Argentina, and they asked about how we frame our work in the U.S., the pervasiveness it has in our schools, how we are talking about media literacy and our upcoming U.S. election, and of course, the impact of AI and its connections to media literacy. Wide ranging to be sure!
The day after I arrived in Tucumán by plane I presented to a group of teachers and discussed media literacy with the staff at Fundación León. Then I got to visit the oldest newspaper in Tucumán which is where the journalist who presented to the teens works. And I was even interviewed myself while I was there. The next day was the main event that brought me to Argentina, and yet, so much transpired in the many conversations I had with so many kind and caring Argentinians that I anticipate much more media literacy in their future.
