The third webinar within the project Sustainable Language Education and Media: Bridging the Gap Between EU-Ukraine with the support of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union (Applied Linguistics Department, Lesya Ukrainka Volyn National University, Lutsk, Ukraine) was held on June 11, 2024. The topic of the webinar “Hybrid Wars & Media Literacy” strongly resonated with present day full-scale military aggression of Russia agains Ukraine. Over 60 participants from Lutsk, Kyiv, Lviv, Uzhgorod, Irpin took part in fruitful and emotional discussions. The first keynote speaker – PhD, associate professor Anna Danylchuk, Lesya Ukrainka Volyn National University (Lutsk, Ukraine) presented an in-depth analysis on the topic “Disinformation & the Role of Social Media Influencers in the Times of Crisis, Conflicts & Wars”. The discussion that followed indicated a strong motivation of Ukrainian students and academics to resist hybrid wars on social media and other internet resources.
The second lecture ”Counter Fighting the Great Russian Lie” was offered by Ukrainian journalist, director Natalka Ponomariv – ”Counter Fighting the Great Russian Lie”. It was a though provoking overview of multiple levels of Russia’s hybrid manipulations in Ukrainian information space.
Project coordinator prof. Iryna Biskub, professor of the Applied Linguistics Department, Lesya Ukrainka Volyn National University (Lutsk, Ukraine) in her presentation “Chat GPT as a Hybrid Enemy of Ukraine” outlined a number of worrying errors in ChatGPT text generation related to Ukrainian culture, history, outstanding personality which also constitutes an essential part in Russia’s information war against Ukraine.
In the closing discussion, webinar’s participants exchanged helpful information about reliable information resources that provide verified information.
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the speakers and all the participants for their deep interest in the topics discussed!
