Promoting Human Rights in the Digital Era: Raising awareness and professional standards in journalism about the impact of modern technologies on human rights

About this project

<p>Modern technologies and digitalisation are increasingly impacting our lives. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this process. It has shown not only their potential, but also their negative impact on human rights, especially among vulnerable groups.<br> Media play a key role in a democratic society and should respond to the urgent global challenges of the digital age. Media should also be a powerful force in anticipating, analysing and responding to those human rights abuses which result from the use of modern technology. However, due to the absence of adequate training both at the university level and on-the-job professional development, this essential skill is lacking among journalists, with a consequent impact on public awareness and understanding of this problem.<br> In an interdisciplinary consortium of Czech educational, academic, and nonprofit entities together with a Norwegian partner, we seek to change this by increasing the ability of educational institutions and media to address this burning issue. Initially, we will present the results of our base-line research with journalists and vulnerable groups at our first conference and use them to design and implement a one-semester course for journalism students at the Charles University Faculty of Social Sciences.<br> We will, thus, introduce the first long-term educational module in the Czech Republic focused on eliminating discrimination and human rights abuses, while originating and distributing media content produced by journalists in the field of modern technologies and their use. The course will give birth to a series of online training sessions and guidelines for journalists. Both will be used at universities and within the media in the Czech Republic and in Norway and presented at our second conference. With this project, we aim to increase long-term awareness of the impact of technology on human rights in the journalistic community, educational institutions, and the general public.</p>

Bilateral cooperation results

The cooperation with the Norwegian partner enriched the whole project especially with direct experience from more digitized country like Norway. The topic of the impact of digital technologies on society so the Norwegian partner made it possible to see from a different perspective. In particular, the topics of digital exclusion and privacy protection, the Norwegian partner contributed to both events for the public that were part of the project implemented. Thanks to the established cooperation, several media were created with the Norwegian partner even outside the project outputs - for example an article on cash protection in Norway.

Project partners

• Electronic Frontier Norway (EFN) Donor project partner· Norway
• Prague Centre for Media Skills Project partner· Czechia
• Center of Artificial Intelligence Journalism, ICSJ, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University Project partner· Czechia
• Institute of State and Law of the Czech Academy Academy of Sciences Project partner· Czechia