“'It's Fake.’ ‘No, It's not.’ ‘How is It Fake?’. It Happened to Me and My Grandparents Several Times”: Portuguese Generations’ Dialogues on Fake News

Information disorders have introduced additional challenges for democratic participation and citizenship in societies. On this phenomenon, which has received significant attention in recent times, media literacies are pointed to as a solution. Despite this, it can be said that media literacies have mostly centered on children and young people, there is an increasing research interest and discussion on older people [1, 2]. We used a qualitative approach, to better understand the relationship between older people and disinformation in Portugal. We rely on their perspectives and on the views of younger people. The data relies on two projects. Firstly, it refers to the results of a set of workshops held between March and April 2023 in the district of Porto with people aged between 61 and 77 years old. This action research project highlighted their voices, anxieties, and experiences regarding disinformation, with special emphasis on themes, practical cases, and tools. A second project focused on youth and news (YouNDigital - Youth, News and Digital Citizenship - PTDC/COM-OUT/0243/2021) shed light on how and why, in the context of datafication and algorithms, youth aged between 15 and 24 living in Portugal associate older people with episodes of disinformation. The preliminary results point to the fragility of the older in the face of these phenomena, largely justified by a lack of confidence in their abilities, as well as the frequent reference to young people as those who help them.