2021 Community Partnership Programs

Our Model

First, we listen: Listening Sessions with Community Leaders

Community leaders and organizers can play pivotal roles in combating misinformation around COVID-19 and vaccines in their communities. Not only are they trusted voices in their communities, but the needs and issues affecting each community are specific. At the launch of each partnership, we invite community leaders within each partner organization’s network to join a listening session and discuss the types and effects of misinformation they are encountering in their region and within their communities so that we may better understand the most prevalent false and misleading narratives and how they are spreading. Our media literacy team listens and takes note of the specific concerns raised around the sources and spread of vaccine misinformation, impacts on community behavior, and the efforts to combat misinformation that have historically worked best. We work with participants to discuss who can most effectively serve as trusted messengers of accurate information, successful strategies for disseminating accurate information, and the state of accessibility to credible vaccine news.

In response to what we’ve heard, we create customized media literacy and misinformation defense workshops for leaders, designed to train them to protect and empower their community from harmful, misleading narratives and other forms of compromised information.

Then, we offer strategies: Train-the-Trainer Workshops and Discussions

Leaders like organizers, chapter presidents, pastors, and tribal leaders serve as trusted messengers and are uniquely positioned to help seed media literacy skills and stem the spread of targeted misinformation in their communities. Based on what we’ve heard during the listening sessions, we then hold “train-the-trainer” style workshops and discussions for leaders in those communities. In the workshops, PEN America offers attendees concrete messaging and solutions for addressing misleading content online and in person regarding COVID-19, vaccines, and related issues, as well as an opportunity to ask doctors specific questions.

In tailored, 75-minute closed-door, interactive sessions, we review our media literacy program, research and approach, and ground participants in the basics of misinformation. Participants then discuss the nature of false content on social media in their communities, and explore how certain groups are being targeted and the real world impact that can have. The second half of the workshop offers participants guidance on effective and proactive strategies that build on their community’s strengths, as well as resources to lead their own media literacy training sessions or conversations in their communities, including PEN America’s Media Literacy Toolkit. We aim to wrap each discussion with a Q&A with a doctor from the community.

Finally, we spread the word: Public Media Literacy Workshops

Each partnership culminates with a media literacy session for the public, in which we review basic media literacy skills and strategies for fighting vaccine misinformation and discuss trust and healthy news diets with doctors and medical professionals, community leaders, and media literacy experts. Post-workshop, we always follow up with attendees and send supplemental resources, including guides, fact-checking tools, and a link to the recording. Establishing a feedback loop and connection between workshop participants, trained community leaders, and media literacy educators is crucial to embedding long-term media literacy habits.