Skopje, 29 October 2024 (MIA) - Media literacy is not just a skill, but a necessity for every individual. Informal education, public events, workshops, and seminars play a key role in building resistance against disinformation. The country should create conditions for independent media, where journalists can work freely and provide credible information to the public, in order to protect democracy, heard a public debate marking Media Literacy Days that was held in Parliament on Tuesday, organized by the Youth Education Forum and the Parliamentary Club on Youth Affairs and Policies.

Parliament Speaker Afrim Gashi stressed the importance of learning to distinguish true from false information and that tackling this challenge requires joint commitment, hard work and a comprehensive approach.

"I believe it is important to learn to differentiate between true and false information. It is also essential that citizens, especially young people, are prepared to analyze and assess the information they receive. I agree this is not an easy task in a globalized and digitized world where media are the protagonists of this era," Gashi noted.

Parliament's Secretary General Marina Dimovska underlined that media literacy is essential in today's society, in a time when information is easily accessible and can also be controversial and that informal education, organizing public events, workshops and seminars, play a key role in promoting media literacy and create resistance against disinformation in society.

"Every day we receive a large number of information and citizens often find themselves in situations where they have to make distinctions between true and fake news. A society must have a media literate youth that can differentiate between various types of information and can think critically and independently. Media literacy is the foundation for the contemporary society to function in a time of rapid change and technological advancement. It is crucial in today's society, in a time when information is easily available and can be controversial. Unfortunately, the trend of mass dissemination of disinformation by fake news is increasingly present," Dimovska said.

Parliamentary Club on Youth Affairs and Policies Coordinator Dragana Bojkovska believes that by encouraging, protecting and promoting media literacy in its true form protects democracy, citizens can easily differentiate between fake news and propaganda, and thus they can be active and informed participants in the democratic process itself.

"Media literacy is not just a skill, but a necessity. It is important to detect which news is true, and which fake, and which news may have been deliberately created to spread certain disinformation. That is why we need support from journalists to provide true and reliable information, and the country should create conditions for independent media where journalists will be able to freely provide reliable information to the public," Bojkovska stated. ssh/ik/

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