The tone in communication becomes rougher. Fuelled by so-called social media, personal communication is also changing, becoming more aggressive and less tolerant both in face-to-face interaction and in messaging in social media. As digital platforms expand their reach ever further, they tighten their grip on the information we circulate and are exposed to. Fake news is thriving in this new media environment – presenting a threat to our democratic societies and providing a ground for a surge in openly hateful racist and xenophobic comments either in social media or in verbal encounters between citizens. Such comments are an attack on the rights of different ethnic, religious and/or national groups, in clear violation of the principles of equal human dignity and respect for the racial and cultural differences among human groups. Hate words and hate crime are directly connected. Hate speech can also negatively influence matters as large as transnational migration and regional security and be seen as a precursor for further steps into radicalisation. Citizens need therefore new skills and competences to be better prepared to deal with this phenomenon. This is especially true for all those who are working in public positions, e.g. civil servants, teachers, youth workers, persons in cultural institutions, or people working in public media. However, many of them have had their vocational education years ago and are unprepared to the changes in the way in which our democracy is endangered and which aspects of aggressive communication radicalisation pose a threat. Arguments Against Aggression project will raise their awareness and provide them with tools that help them to cope with hate speech and aggression and handle respective situations. The general objective of Arguments Against Aggression project is to equip citizens with communication and argumentation skills that they can use in social media sites or real-life interactions whenever they are confronted with aggressive, racist or xenophobic messages, inequalities and gender violence. In this way, they will be able to transform unproductive shouting matches or passive-aggressive avoidance into actually productive conversations that should end with participants having a clearer understanding of each other's views, and build skills and motivation to take action against injustice. In order to reach these objectives, the specific objectives of Arguments Against Aggression are • to develop a Catalogue of the most common prejudices and possible answers and communication strategies that can increase the effectiveness of the arguments; • to compile user-oriented Guide and Training Resources containing argumentation tools and strategies against various kinds of prejudice: refugees and migrants, political extremism, sexual orientation; • to enable networking and exchange of experience through implementation of an e-Training platform for the access to all contents and training materials; • to give immediate access to answer and communication strategies through development of mobile applications for smart phones; • to achieve sustainability by providing access to the project’s outputs for at least five years after the end of the project, i.e. until 2025. The primary target groups for our project are adults who are working in public positions, e.g. civil servants who have contact with citizens, teachers, youth workers, persons in cultural institutions, or people working in public media. The secondary target group are people working in refugee and migrant organisations, in the civil right movement or in organisations against racism or similar fields. Stakeholders are the key actors in education and civil rights. Arguments Against Aggression project will provide these target groups with information and training materials and best practice about effective tools and methods, in order to help them to cope with hate speech and in handling respective situations. They will be able to acquire skills and knowledge to apply interventions in a preventive stage, and to focus on self-esteem, empathy towards out-groups and managing negative emotions. In the end, this approach will reduce racism and xenophobia and combat the spread of hate speech and aggressive communication in social media. The immediate impact, already during the project duration, will be the transfer of communication and argumentation skills to approx. 200 persons who are working with at least ten times more colleagues and to approx. 400 key actors. After having been involved in the testing phase, they will be able to inform their environment about the existence of our Catalogue, Guide and Training Resources. For the long-term impact we have estimated that in the countries of the partnership alone, more than 15.000 persons who are working in public positions with citizen contact, will be informed about the Catalogue, Guide and Training Resources and the e-training materials in their native languages.
The tone in communication has become rougher. Fuelled by so-called social media, personal communication is also changing, becoming more aggressive and less tolerant both in face-to-face interaction and in messaging in social media. As digital platforms expand their reach even further, they tighten their grip on the information we circulate and are exposed to. Fake news is thriving in this new media environment – presenting a threat to our democratic societies and providing a ground for a surge in openly hateful racist and xenophobic comments either in social media or in verbal encounters between citizens. Such comments are an attack on the rights of different ethnic, religious and/or national groups, in clear violation of the principles of equal human dignity and respect for the racial and cultural differences among human groups. Hate words and hate crime are directly connected. Hate speech can also negatively influence matters as large as transnational migration and regional security and be seen as a precursor for further steps into radicalisation. Citizens need therefore new skills and competences to be better prepared to deal with this phenomenon. This is especially true for all those who are working in public positions, e.g. civil servants, teachers, youth workers, persons in cultural institutions, or people working in public media. However, many of them have had their vocational education years ago and are unprepared for the changes in the way in which our democracy is endangered and which aspects of aggressive communication radicalisation pose a threat. Arguments Against Aggression (AAA) project raised their awareness and provided them with tools that help them to cope with hate speech and aggression and handle respective situations. The general objective of AAA was to equip citizens with communication and argumentation skills that they can use in social media sites or real-life interactions whenever they are confronted with aggressive, racist, or xenophobic messages, inequalities, and gender violence. In this way, they can transform unproductive shouting matches or passive-aggressive avoidance into actually productive conversations that should end with participants having a clearer understanding of each other's views, and build skills and motivation to take action against injustice. In order to reach these objectives, AAA project team - developed a Catalogue of the most common prejudices and possible answers and communication strategies that can increase the effectiveness of the arguments; - compiled a user-oriented guide and training resources containing argumentation tools and strategies against various kinds of prejudice: refugees and migrants, political extremism, sexual orientation; - enabled networking and exchange of experience through the implementation of an e-training platform for access to all contents and training materials; - gave immediate access to answers and communication strategies through the development of mobile applications for smartphones; The primary target groups for AAA were adults who are working in public positions, e.g. civil servants who have contact with citizens, teachers, youth workers, persons in cultural institutions, or people working in public media. The secondary target group was people working in refugee and migrant organisations, in the civil rights movement or in organisations against racism or similar fields. Stakeholders are the key actors in education and civil rights. AAA provided these target groups with information and training materials and good practices about effective tools and methods in seven languages, in order to help them to cope with hate speech and in handling respective situations. With the developed training tools they are able to acquire skills and knowledge to apply interventions in a preventive stage, and to focus on self-esteem, empathy towards out-groups, and managing negative emotions. This approach reduces racism and xenophobia and combats the spread of hate speech and aggressive communication in social media. Improved communication and argumentation skills were transferred to approx. 200 persons who are working with at least ten times more colleagues and to approx. 400 key actors. They were enabled to inform their environment about the existence of our Catalogue, Guide and Training Resources. For the long-term impact we estimate that in the countries of the partnership alone, more than 15.000 persons who are working in public positions with citizen contact, will be informed about the Catalogue, Guide and Training Resources, and the e-training materials in their native languages.