DE.CO.DE – Decode, Co-Create, Debate

Research page

DE.CO.DE – Decode, Co-Create, Debate

Duration: January 2026 – April 2027

Funding: Fondation Leenaards, Media and Democracy Programme

Keywords: Media; information; disinformation; democracy; youth; journalism; creativity

This pilot project aims to foster the active participation of young people in the Lake Geneva region in democratic life and to raise awareness of their role as future citizens. It offers interactive debate and co-creation workshops to unpack one of the major challenges facing contemporary democracies: disinformation in the age of deepfakes and artificial intelligence.

Informed participation is essential to democracy, and youth engagement plays a key role in societies’ ability to respond to information crises. In a context marked by the rapid circulation of content, the spread of disinformation, and the rise of artificial intelligence, it is crucial to understand how information is produced, disseminated, transformed, and instrumentalised.

Geneva’s international environment provides a particularly suitable setting for this initiative. It offers an ideal framework for exploring the implications of technological and geopolitical shifts on public debate at different levels and across diverse contexts.

Through interactive workshops in French and English, led by field journalists Maurine Mercier and Joseph Roche, participants will co-create a multimedia guide. These creative sessions will explore the mechanisms behind deepfakes, their implications for democratic systems, and ways to counter them.

The workshops are open to young people aged 15 to 25 and will include different modules. Participants will propose formats and produce media content aimed at identifying disinformation. The focus will be on investigative methods, verification practices, and the production of informed counter-narratives.

The multimedia guide will later be used in sessions organised in schools across the Lake Geneva region to foster discussion on democratic issues at both local and global levels.

If you are not paying for information, you are unfortunately the product

Joseph Roche

Journalist and workshop facilitator

Workshop Sessions

Identifying Disinformation Campaigns

This workshop kicked off the project with a general introduction on Disinformation campaigns. But most importantly, it gathered students and youth from around the region for the first time, to discuss these issues.

poster session 1

Troll Farms and the Industrialization of Manipulation

The second workshop in this series focused on a widely discussed but equally misunderstood topic. Though the word "Troll" might be common on and off-line, the mechanisms involved in "trolling" on a massive level are often hidden. Though this workshop, students were able to understand the techniques actors might deploy online for manipulation on a large scale.

Trolls, workshop poster

Deepfakes, Social Media, and Synthetic Reality

Transforming reality itself is a very modern argument, made possible by multiple online platforms. With techniques being perfected everyday, this workshop taught the students some strategies to spot this kind of manipulation and to stop it in it's tracks.

Detecting and Responding to Deepfakes

A continuation of the previous day's workshop, these few hours reflected on a response to deepfakes online, taking into account consequences and ways to stop their proliferation.

Deepfakes poster workshop

Alternative Realities and Fragmented Information Spaces

For the final student centred workshop, the team focused not on specific technological strategies but rather on the social fragmentation that can occur within or between platforms. These so-called "bubbles" not only separate audiences but are also invisible and therefore hard to escape. Through group discussions, participants were able to literally connect beyond the algorithmic influences and share perspectives without barriers.

Co-Creating Pedagogical Tools

This last workshop innovated by inviting teachers and community leaders. Talking not only to the youth concerned but also to their teachers, in order to build better tools that can be extrapolated into classrooms far and wide.

Scientific committee

Tania Chytil – Producer of Education and Youth Content, RTS.
Stéphane Garcia – SSecretary General, Et Pourquoi Pas?
Christian Georges – Scientific Collaborator at the Intercantonal Conference of Public Instruction of French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino (CIIP), involved in implementing Media Literacy Week in schools.
Estelle Pannatier – Senior Policy Manager, AlgorithmWatch CH.
Catherine Pugin – Digital Delegate, Canton of Vaud.
Marceau Schroeter – Attaché for Political Rights, State Chancellery of Geneva.
Markus Spillmann – Director, UseTheNews.ch.
Basile Zimmermann – Senior Lecturer and Researcher at the Global Studies Institute, University of Geneva.