What should we do in a world where satellites map every minute every point on the globe and yet many people believe in the flat earth, even in Bulgaria? Is the media contributing to people drowning in an ocean of information and misinformation, unable to tell the difference between the two, and is there even a lifeline?
Mediapool journalists discussed these provocative as well as real questions that everyone has faced in one way or another in their daily lives with the citizens of Smolyan on April 17 in the second of the series of media seminars in the country.
In 2024 and 2025, Mediapool journalists will meet readers and citizens from 20 cities in Bulgaria during a series of workshops on how the average citizen can tackle fake news and take back control of social media. The first event was held in Pazardjik.
In Smolyan, the meeting turned into an honest conversation about the role of journalism and the challenges in the online environment after the demise of the mass media monopoly from the twentieth century. They joined the conversation citizens of any age – between 19 and 80. They shared that they have a strong need for such meetings in schools in the district, because high school students are a very frequent victim of Internet traps.
It may sound incredible, but many people around the world, including in Bulgaria, are returning to the belief that the Earth is flat, despite the knowledge of the spherical shape of the Earth being available for more than 2000 years. To the question of whether these people are serious, the answer is a resounding yes, not least because the price of being a flat earther is often rejection from society, for example from the church, being fired from a job, and in extreme cases – even losing your life you are. How should we respond to this paradox of the information age?
“Information is not knowledge. It is not enough for one to access and search. One must search properly. We live and function according to our beliefs. And since our beliefs define our lives, we must be very careful with how we form them . Self-deception is an unconscious process and is not confined to the uneducated and the ignorant,” the journalists from Mediapool told nearly 50 citizens of the Rhodope town. In their words, awareness of the traps of our own thinking is the first step to the fact that a person is open to the perception of useful information.
Journalists from Mediapool Tsvetelina Sokolova and Krasen Nikolov explained to people why analysts call networks like “Facebook” “anger factories”, what is the relationship of “facts” with emotions and who takes advantage of all this to manipulate societies.
There was a special focus on the difference between professional journalists and social media talking heads, and the responsibility they all carry. During the meeting, various examples of fake news were discussed and stories from the professional experience of journalists were heard.
The citizens of Smolyan were impressed by the practical part of the training, in which journalists showed the basic steps to check the credibility of a news site, how to tell if a photo has been manipulated, and when and where it was first shared. Some of the people stayed after the official part of the event to try for themselves how the online tools for distinguishing the fake from the real one work.
Both the youngest participants and older citizens were very active, many of whom, however, are also up to date with the latest developments in the online environment.
“You are the future of our country and you must learn to be critical and informed in order not to fall into the trap of misinformation and make responsible decisions in the future.” journalist Krasen Nikolov addressed the graduates of the “Ivan Vazov” Language High School.
“The documentary cinema is one of the most valuable lifelines in the ocean of misinformation”it became clear from the words of Hristo Bakalski and Olga Dacheva from the International Documentary Rodopi Film Fest (RIFE).
The next meetings of Mediapool journalists will be in Kyustendil and Sandanski at the end of May. During the summer months – from July to September, four events are planned – in Ruse, Silistra, Shumen and Varna.
The series of seminars are part of the media literacy project “Be MediaWise Bulgaria” of the world famous American Institute of Journalism “Poynter” and its international digital media literacy initiative “MediaWise”.
The project is aimed at different groups of the population – schoolchildren, students, adult citizens, as well as vulnerable social groups.
The other Poynter partners in the Bulgarian project are the “Together in an Hour” Foundation and the American University in Bulgaria.
Tags: Conversation Smolyan Earth flat lifeline ocean misinformation
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