Professor Renee Hobbs and her colleagues are working on a project entitled Medialogue on Propaganda, a year-long, cross-national professional learning community that used innovative approaches to support the learning needs of German and American educators and teacher educators. The program was supported by a $30,000 grant from the U.S. State Department’s Embassy in Berlin to Media Literacy Now, a national non-profit organization.

Teaching about propaganda and disinformation is challenging and the rise of political polarization has made teaching media literacy controversial in some locations. Digital and media literacy education are unevenly implemented in schools in Germany, the United States, and around the world. In Germany, implementation of media literacy education has lagged as compared to other parts of Europe and the coronavirus pandemic has led to continuing stresses on the education system.

More than 700 educators had some exposure to one or more of the online programs during the 2021-2022 academic year and 36 participants had a deeper professional learning experience in the Power of Two program, where participants worked collaboratively with a partner to develop lesson plans or class projects linked to the themes of digital and media literacy, propaganda, and disinformation.

Read the final report