Ahead of the 2024 European Parliament elections, it is important to reinforce European democracy and values including tolerance, diversity, and solidarity. The surge of extreme-right and authoritarian parties, their use of digital tactics and their attempts to unite at the EU level, as well as concerted efforts of the hostile actors to implement disinformation campaigns, pose a real threat to democracy and fundamental rights across the European Union.
The European Movement International’s action consists in installing and spreading positive narratives, in social media dominated by disinformation campaigns, on selected topics concerning the war in Ukraine in an effort to counterbalance negative messages coming from hostile actors. To this end, the European Movement will develop 6 digital campaigns and one event.
Goals
- Promoting a positive narrative to counterbalance negative messages from hostile actors
EMI will design and implement social media campaigns in six European countries, populating digital space with positive narratives about the defence of Ukraine, sanctions against Russia, support for Ukrainian refugees and resilience and preservation of the Western alliances and values. - Reaching the persuadable audience to prevent disinformation
To reach a persuadable audience, we will optimise our campaigns by applying our evidence-based strategic communication methodology. - Increasing the resilience of NGOs, civil society and similar organisations working in hostile environments
We will organise an event to share best practices with like-minded civil society organisations. The aim is to equip them with the necessary knowledge to combat disinformation and positively engage people outside their core supporters.
Results
The campaigns reached an audience of more than 2.7 million persuadable citizens spread across six European countries: Italy, Hungary, Poland, Estonia, Finland, and France. Using evidence-based communication strategies, our content related to the defence of and support for Ukraine on individual, national and European levels, resulting in 4.3 million digital impressions and in 1.8 million of our audience engaging directly with our messaging.
The event was entitled The War Within: The War In Ukraine And The Assault On European Democracy and took place in November 2022. It gathered EU, EEAS and NATO representatives as well as a diverse audience from civil society, social partners, youth organisations, member state representatives and opinion shapers. We discussed how to strengthen citizens’ and society’s resilience to disinformation, propaganda and hostile information activities; how to defend our democracy from external interference; and how to maintain and deepen support for Ukraine and EU sanctions, and to continue showing solidarity with Ukrainian refugees.
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