The only way for organizations and individuals to realize the benefits of social and participatory media is to learn what they are, how they work, and how to use them. In the same way that we need a media literacy to understand how TV and newspapers work and affect our society, increasingly we need to cultivate a “participatory media literacy,” as described by Howard Rheingold, to understand how to leverage the Internet to achieve our goals and meet our needs.

Over the past four years, SMEX has focused on offering training to help develop a participatory media literacy in Lebanon using a variety of social media resources, including well-known applications like Blogger, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as lesser-known ones, such as Moodle, Mediawiki, and Open Street Map.

In addition to hosting a number of free and funded workshops each year, we also offer customized trainings and consulting services for social enterprises and media development organizations through our partner company, SMEX & Co. For more information, please contact Mohamad [at] smex [dot] org.