Rabin Neupane (11th Cohort)

The Samaanta fellows were fortunate to attend the Media Literacy and Climate Change workshop recently. After being a part of the Samaanta fellowship, It was one of the first workshops that we, the 11th cohort have attended and we were very excited for this workshop. It was organized at Quixote’s Cove (QC)’s office by the US Embassy Book bus team. It was a 4 days long workshop which was conducted by the facilitators from Book bus team, Bipan sir and Nista ma’am. Actually, the US Embassy Book Bus is one of the nine American spaces run by the American library. It is sponsored by the American Embassy in Kathmandu and has been operated by the Satori Center for Arts Since November 2013. 

We all have been using social media apps and know how Facebook or Instagram works, but from the session, we understood what  media literacy is? We learned that,

It is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate information in a variety of formats, including print and non-print information. It makes people able to read, comprehend and write (create, design, produce) the information. It develops critical thinking skills to understand how media messages shape our culture and society, identify target marketing and advertising and make us able to recognize what media makers want us to believe or do. 

From the workshop, we were  able to identify what type of information is there on the different social media platforms and how we can differentiate the information. For example, understanding the difference between a report, an opinion, infotainment, fake and Scams, propaganda and marketing news.

The session was beneficial for us. We learned things about media culture and especially that in this digital world we are directly and indirectly connected to the media, so we need to know about its advantages and disadvantages. Earlier I used to check whatever random posts the platform recommended to me, but after this session, I have learned about the importance of filtering content that we read on digital platforms. During the session, we were also asked to write our opinion on climate change and it helped me learn about the positive campaigns that I can run using my social media accounts.

Every effort counts, no matter how small they seem

Overall, the session was fruitful and I am happy that the fellows were a part of it and I would also like to thank Samaanta Foundation for this opportunity.