Narrative Management for Peace through Dialogue (#NAMA4PD): Use of Digital Media and Dealing with Disinformation in Senegal (2023 – 2025)
Division Media Use Research
Institute for Media and Communication Studies
Department of Political and Social Sciences
The project is supported by a funding of the Bavarian State Chancellery.
Narrative Management for Peace through Dialogue (#NAMA4PD): Use of Digital Media and Dealing with Disinformation in Senegal (2023 – 2025)
This sub-project is part of a joint project coordinated by the OTH Regensburg and conducted in cooperation with the NGO Project Lighthouse Africa that is supported by the Bavarian State Chancellery within the course of its development cooperation with Senegal. The local project partner is the organization Action Humaine pour le Développement Integré au Sénégal (AHDIS). The joint project’s objective is the development and realization of a network-based and cross-sectoral approach for the combating of disinformation as a key for peacekeeping in Senegal and neighboring regions. This joint project is part of a wider context of activities carried out by various partners dealing with the increasingly deteriorating security situation in the West African Sahel region for years. Various actors within this region, among which can be found Islamist terror groups but also foreign governments such as the Russian one, destabilize this region not only by means of weaponed mercenaries, but also with propaganda and disinformation campaigns. In order to tackle these developments, resilience structures for the effective combat of propaganda and disinformation campaigns need to be installed within West Africa’s population. Following the conclusion of a previous project (2022/ 23), the current project is designed to consolidate the installation of actor networks, analyze data for the dissemination and use of disinformation by the local population and develop training and infrastructure measurements for the strengthening of resilience against disinformation.
The Objective of the Project:
This sub-project conducted by Freie Universität Berlin is developing a data gathering and an evaluation model that is supposed to gather the data required for the project’s success within the course of the project (data on socio-political context, media use, relevant topics) as well as the project’s success itself – by a measurable decrease in disinformation in the communication networks on site or by conflict-sensitive forms of discourse. In doing so, qualitative as well as quantitative data gatherings will be designed.
In order to obtain detailed knowledge of starting points for interventions and training measures, data on current discourses are gathered within the project regions by means of quantitative and qualitative methods. In doing so, social media analyses, surveys as well as qualitative and standardized content analyses of media contents are conducted. The data will allow a more pinpoint elaboration of counteractions against disinformation within the course of the project.
In workshops on site, based on the current methods of media education and journalism training as well as based on the previously gathered data sets, a training concept adapted to the regional challenges, existing competencies and information needs of the population will jointly be elaborated with regional stakeholders and experts. For this purpose, the project cooperates with journalism experts and local partners.
The training concept developed in a participative way will be exemplary applied in a selected project location. In doing so, selected trainers under supervision of experts of the project team are asked to exemplarily carry out citizen trainings in their communities, by which the people in the region are supposed to learn how to gather relevant information for themselves, process and share them, in order to confront disinforming narratives with a secure information environment. It is to be conveyed which motives exist behind propaganda narratives, how they can be recognized and how they can be addressed. The experiences acquired as a result of the test will be thoroughly analyzed by the project team of Freie Universität Berlin, in order to evaluate the training concept, the procedures and the used training materials and in order to adapt them. The objective is to obtain an already tested training program implementable in the project regions and beyond.
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