engleski

Media literacy : the mean of suppression of fake news and propaganda in the cyber communication era

With the development of the Internet and the growing presence of digital / cyber communication, theoreticians’ expectations from the democratization of media and information grew. It was believed that the global information village would bring greater media freedom, and thus greater media literacy of citizens free from censorship and control over the media. But, contrary to the initial expectations, the strengthening of the influence of social networks (often as the first and, in many cases, the only source of information) has caused strengthening of the influence of fake news and propaganda content. Mainstream media often uncritically download information posted on social networks from unreliable sources (such as a front groups) without prior verification of this information. Unfortunately, information agencies also often do the same thing. The accuracy of information for all types of media today is far less important than number of clicks and overviews of some media content. In the society of the spectacle abuse of the big data collected and analysed through social networks can even change outcomes of a referendum, or presidential elections. Considering the fact that the correlation between the degree of media literacy and the democratic development of some society has been proved, this paper explores the media literacy awareness of Twitter users in Croatia (primarily journalists, influencers and politicians) and their perception of their own consumption and dissemination of fake news via social networks.

media literacy ; fake news ; propaganda ; cyber communication

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