Journalist Zoran Bojarovski, in an interview for CIVIL Media, assesses the situation with disinformation and propaganda as very serious and outlines the emphasized hybrid threats that are country has been facing over the past decade.
“The situation is very serious, and this is because disinformation, hybrid threats and propaganda in the last decade have become particularly emphasized”, says Bojarovski.
He adds that under the influence of third parties, important topics of our society are attacked, such as the multiethnic concept and the issue of internal stability and the democratic system.
“In our country, these are influences from third parties that target very sensitive topics of our society, topics that our society relies on, and those being the multiethnic concept of the state, our tendency to be part of the EU and the issue of internal stability and the democratic system. These components attacked by disinformation make our situation very serious, and this is something that requires an appropriate response precisely by those who are most called to defend these sensitive topics in our society from these influences”, adds Bojarovski.
The answers for countering such propaganda, he says, should be sought from among the most affected parties and adds that the institutions have to take such threats seriously and prepare strategies, but says that it is not enough for preventing this.
“The institutions must take this threat most seriously, and the strategies and concepts for countering disinformation at the level of institutions, at the level of the state organization has to be strategically set and strategies have to be prepared, but they are not enough, they have to be implemented, be efficient solutions and see that they give results”, says the journalist.
Moreover, Bojarovski indicates media literacy as one of the main components in dealing with the spread of disinformation. He says that it is extremely important that the citizens have built a filter to be able to recognize what is accurate and what is inaccurate information and indicates that there has to be greater responsibility among those who should be in the protection of information.
“In our country we have political party leaders who are sources of disinformation, who have been concluded in Brussels and in other international organizations. You have a leader of a political party who initiates serious protests with elements of violence carried out based on disinformation that the Macedonian language is not in the EU negotiating framework”, says Bojarovski.
“What disinformation attacks is the stability of the system, it is a weapon that attacks the system with the purpose to cause distrust”, says Bojarovski and adds that if you have a series of attacks against institutions, that raise the question of suspicion, that worm of suspicion among the citizens will start to work, and that causes less participation of citizens in social processes and that can lead to a weak turnout at elections, which leaves room for radical political structures to come to the fore, which are far left or far right, which are sources of totalitarianism.
Biljana Jordanovska
Prepared by: А. Risteski
camera: Aleksandar Rizinski
editing: Arian Mehmeti
Translation: N. Cvetkovska
The interview is part of the project “Resilient Journalism in the fight against disinformation and propaganda” which CIVIl implements in partnership with Youth4Media (Y4M), with the support of the Government of North Rhine-Westphalia, Dusseldorf, Germany.
