by Imran Mehr (Pakistan)
cover photo by Martin Hanzel
The second day of the “World Perspectives” Minority Voices study session in the European Youth Centre Budapest was a mixed blend of interesting knowledge and some fun activities. It was the continuation of the previous day’s session “Contrasting media: Introduction to the rules of logic”. The sessions addressed the possibility that biased information may be present in the information that people receive and provided tools to identify and categorise them by type. The following rules were covered: Fallacy fallacy, begging the question, hasty generalisation, spotlight fallacy, cherry picking, quoting out of context, false choice, equivocation, redefinition, loaded word, loaded question, special pleading, red herring, slippery slope, anonymous authority, ad hominem, poisoning the well, tu quoque, appeal to emotion, ad populum, genetic fallacy, straw man and guilt by association. You can read more on the rules of falacities here.
The participants were delighted not only to actively participate but to reflect their opinions as well. They showed their deep interest by interacting with other participants during the coffee breaks. Many of them were interested in sharing their human rights and media experiences while taking lunch outside in a situated garden. After the lunch, different editorial teams led by the coordinators got together to have updates on their research ideas. The day’s session ended with the reflection group meetings to hear participants’ views.
After the dinner, a colourful cultural market was held to get highlights of different cultures and countries. The tables in the party room were decorated with various colorful items. Some brought souvenirs, food items and others informatory literature. Our nice fellow, Ahmet, from Tunisia brought beautiful souvenirs like key chains, badges, etc. Cultural items were displayed, including souvenirs, food, drinks, badges, stickers, diaries and some other fun stuff. That was great fun to see that the participants were divided into different groups and challenged to perform different activities like dance competition and products advertising competition, to guessing the riddle and a beer drinking race.
