A Challenge to Be Met: UNESCO Media & Information Literacy Week
The modern world is going through an unprecedented sequence of events. Humanity has first class tickets to environmental collapse, human rights infringement, the occasional rise of fascism, and most recently (and noticeably) the Covid-19 pandemic. The health crisis that sprang from this pandemic radically altered everyone’s way of living and severed already existing problems. We are now expected to be pro-active more than ever -whatever that means in self-isolation terms. And one of the most effective ways to do that is via resisting the so-called “disinfodemic”, UNESCO tells us.
The week between the 24th and the 31st of October marked the 2020 Global Media and Information Literacy Week (MIL). This major occasion, organised by UNESCO, raises the issue of disinformation in the Information Age and calls people all over the world to take action against it and promote knowledge and positive media involvement. Our project, A Challenge to Be Met, couldn’t stay passive during this event. Therefore, we decided to participate in a multitude of ways. Our main objective was to combine MIL with the challenge of ethical fashion, which is the main objective of the project.
Open letter to the Mayor of Athens, Greece
UNESCO’s website has a page dedicated to ways one can celebrate MIL week. We chose to proceed by writing an open letter to the Mayor of Athens, Kostas Bakogiannis. The letter focused on greenwashing, a deceptive marketing technique that aims to present a company as environmentally friendly, and, therefore, ethical, even though it actually isn’t. H&M is a Swedish multinational clothing-retail company of fast fashion which is really popular in Greece. It is also a great example of greenwashing, its communication strategy having its basis in misinformation. It poses as an ethical company, while being guilty of numerous, if not unnumbered, cases of human rights violations and of environmental pollution.
Our demand was simple enough. The municipality of Athens should take it upon themselves to create informative events to debunk myths regarding the gears that constitute major fast-fashion companies. They have the resources and the power to bring such change and it should be their duty.
Visual Social Media Post
Addressing the authorities is one way towards social change, most of the times, one that doesn’t take us very far -depending on the authorities. Therefore, A Challenge to Be Met didn’t stop there. We created visual posts that we promoted on our personal Instagram accounts, as well as on Facebook groups with similar content. Once again, the main focus was greenwashing, perhaps the most major misinformation case within the fashion industry. We performed an extensive research on the definitions and aspects of it, as well as ways through which one can spot an unethical brand from an ethical one. The following are the images we created:
Some afterthoughts
The “disinfodemic” is a real issue that should concern each and every one of us. Misinformation is infiltrating every aspect of our lives and especially the pre-existing social issues. The fashion industry is no exception. Clothes have a cost and it is about time we start asking ourselves who pays it. We should also start asking who tries to conceal that cost, because that is where the real danger lies. Knowledge and active media participation are the first step to social innovation!
Where you can find us:
Sources and useful links:
- UNESCO | Building peace in the minds of men and women
- H&M accused of failing to ensure fair wages for global factory workers
- Workers reveal poverty wages and labor law violations in H&M’s supply chain
- How Ethical Is H&M?
- Greenwashing | Definition of Greenwashing by Merriam-Webster
- The troubling evolution of corporate greenwashing
The rest of the team: Glykeria Mirka Savvaidi, Ioanna Poliou
