University professor Jasna Bachovska at CIVIL’s panel discussion “Pandemic and infodemic” that was held on December 1, outlined that media literacy is very important, but is not neglected, especially in higher education.
“I am very scared, I am very distressed by some occurrences, I wonder what we are all victims to, all those things are starting to upset us, and we who work on this issue are also not immune to it. We have received extremely disoriented citizens, and I sense that those young people with whom I work every day have a big problem perceiving what is happening in society. Media culture and media literacy should be systematically strengthened, but that way is the slowest and that is why the conservatives strike here”, said Bachovska.
She says that for years she has been unsuccessfully fighting to have as a subject – media law.
“The subject ‘media literacy’ needs to be introduced in our education, because instead of having our children being media literate from an early age, we have situations where teachers forbid them from using smartphones. And we know that the new generation doesn’t inform itself from traditional media, but from the social networks or portals.
Media literacy has to be introduced as a separate subject in the education, because it is essential to teach people how to orient themselves in that sea of information.
“We need smart and professional journalists, who, for instance, have been working their entire lives in healthcare, we need them, they know the job, we do not have specialized journalists, they report in all categories”, added Bachovska
She asks – Can we manage to catch every lie, is everything we say a lie? Perhaps it is an opposed view or not knowing?
“Europe says – leave the neutrality. I advocate for systematic solutions, for media literacy. There is a difference between countries, only about 20 countries in the world have enormous freedom of speech, the least disinformation, where it has been responded in an appropriate manner. Someone is convinced that they are not spreading a lie, and I think that the process will be long-term”, said Bachovska.
D.M
camera: Atanas Petrovski
editing: Arian Mehmeti
translation: N. Cvetkovska
