“My main focus would be where to find the solution, the base to the best approach we can adopt to tackle the problem of the influence of the new technologies of our societies, and more specifically the problem of the huge spread of disinformation.”, said Snezhana Trpevska from RESIS, at Conference: Attacks on democracy and human rights: Civil society organizations in support of Western Balkans societies facing disinformation, hate speech and hybrid attacks, organized by CIVIL in cooperation with Balkan Forum and members of the Civil Society Platform for Democracy and Human Rights (CSP).
Trpevska said that she is more interested on the demand side, the reasons why the audience is receptive to disinformation, fake news and so on.
“There hasn’t been much status in our country to these issues. Three years ago there was a study, a huge survey on the individual levels of media literacy in the country. There are also some other studies why the audience in our country behave or is so much receptive to disinformation. Mainly the knowledge that is achieved in social research in other countries explains the reasons why the audience behaves like this. It is a fact that social media in our country as well are becoming the main way of accessing news, especially for the younger generations. It is also known that social media continues to contribute to the increasing user generated information, which includes false claims, fabricated news, conspiracy theories and hate speech and so on. But let’s not forget that this wealth of information in digital news outlets has revolutionized and democratized politics. The public can scrutinize what politicians are doing and comment on it almost instantly on the social networks. Let’s not forget the positive aspect of the problem” said Trpevska.
She explained that We are facing the problem of the spread of disinformation.
“Why can’t people recognize what is credible news and what is disinformation? The solution of the problem is not straightforward. Which approach is best? To apply restrictive or positive measures? To ban some content or to raise awareness of the population. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Information is extremely hard to regulate because it spreads like wildfire on social media. On the other side, campaigns and short term educational programs can partially make changes in the awareness of the population to recognize disinformation. The best solution would be to combine the two approaches. To be extremely careful when introducing restrictive measures, but at the same time, to implement thorough and long-term interventions in other societal areas.
My argument is that media and information literacy cannot be the solution to the problem of the disruptive public discourse if its focus is not on developing critical thinking skills among the population. This is a very complex and slow process that can be achieved through a carefully designed reform of the educational process at all levels.
I think the biggest problem with our education today is that it doesn’t teach children to think critically. I am not optimistic that the solution will be visible soon”, noted Snezhana Trpevska on Wednesday (7.28.2021) in Skopje.
