BECID Team’s Achievements: April 2025 in Review
BECID
May 5, 2025 ·
Here you will find a comprehensive review of the BECID team’s achievements in April 2025. This overview includes events organized and attended by the team. You will also find our team members’ latest publications and media coverage.
BECID organises
On April 22, Vytautas Magnus University organized an online seminar for teachers “Digital Mess and Responsibility: How Do We Fix a Broken Reality?”. More information in Lithuanian.
University of Tartu organized two webinars inspired by the Netflix’s hit series Adolescence. On April 21, Kaarel Lott, a Junior Research Fellow of Digital Media Studies at the University of Tartu, talked about manoshpehere and manfluencers in English. On April 29, he talked about the same topic in Estonian.
Publications and media
In April, Vytautas Magnus University published the DIGIRES handbook for teachers in 8 languages: Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, English, Ukrainian, Azerbaijani, Georgian and Russian. Read more.
Kaarel Lott gave several interviews on manoshpere and manfluencers:
- „Naised peaks klubis käima ainult oma mehega.“ Kuidas naisi halvustav sotsiaalmeediasisu jõuab noormeesteni (Eesti Ekspress)
- Naistevihkajate uurija Kaarel Lott: kõige äärmuslikumad mehed peavad endi õiguseks naisi vägistada (Õhtuleht)
- Lott: manfluencer õpetab domineerima naiste üle ja allutama teisi mehi (Vikerraadio)
BECID is represented
On April 1, Inger Klesment moderated a panel discussion at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair titled “Reading in the Digital Age: How Can We Inspire the Next Generation?”.
On April 4, Maia Klaassen conducted a training workshop on critical thinking for members of the Solarride organization.
On April 4, Maia Klaassen gave a presentation titled “Social Media, Health, and Information Noise”, and Maria Murumaa-Mengel presented “Does a Doctor Now Have to Become an Influencer???” at the Estonian Doctors’ Day.
On April 10, Maia Klaassen gave a presentation and participated in a panel discussion at the Brussels conference “Identifying and countering disinformation: Lessons for Europe from Estonia and France”.
On April 17, Kaarel Lott conducted a webinar “How are boys radicalized on social media?”.
On April 10, Maria Murumaa-Mengel delivered a guest lesson titled “When the machine thinks for us… AI as a helper and an enemy” to 5th grade students at TäheTERA School.
On April 15, Maria Murumaa-Mengel conducted a training session for education leaders titled “Social media for educational institutions: How can social media make education more effective?”.
On April 17, Maria Murumaa-Mengel gave a presentation titled “How to smartly use internal communication in a company?” at the Estonian Secretaries’ Annual Conference.
On April 23, Maria Murumaa-Mengel and Inger Klesment viisid conducted a training session titled “Digital heritage and media literacy” for museum educators.
On April 25, Maria Murumaa-Mengel conducted a social media training for young participants of the President Kaljulaid Democracy Academy.
On April 29, Kaarel Lott conducted a webinar “Mida teha, kui lapse eeskujuks saab manfluencer?”.
On April 28, Maria Murumaa-Mengel conducted a training session for the Estonian Sexual Health Association titled “Gender and social media: masculinities and femininities”.
Varia
Aistė Meidutė, editor of Delfi’s fact-checking initiative Melo detektorius (“Lie Detector”), has concluded a study titled Propaganda Through Art, aimed at deepening the understanding of soft power tools in international relations. The research explores whether these tools can be used for manipulative purposes, and if so, how. In a retrospective analysis, the study examines how Russia leverages culture and art to expand its global influence, how the overemphasis on Russian high culture fuels the country’s imperialist ambitions, and what measures can be taken to limit the influence of hostile states exerted through cultural diplomacy. The research also addresses the growing soft power of China and the global response to its expanding ambitions. The articles in Lithuanian can be found here.
The articles in Russian be found under the following links:
