SKOPJE -The Delegation of the European Union to North Macedonia and the Macedonian Institute for Media are organising the regional EU-Western Balkans Media Literacy Conference “Building Resilience to Disinformation” on Monday, 27 September.
The conference will be opened by the President of North Macedonia Stevo Pendarovski. The participants will then also be addressed by Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and H.E. Ambassador David Geer, Head of the Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of North Macedonia.
The event is registered on the platform of the Conference on the Future of Europe and will combine physical presence in Skopje, North Macedonia and online participation.
This is a second conference of this scope supported by the European Union. The conference in Skopje is building upon the results of the first EU-Western Balkan MIL Conference organised in 2020 in Sarajevo and Banja Luka. It will result with recommendations aimed to encourage effective actions against disinformation and further development of the media literacy.
During the conference, fact-checkers, journalists, experts and authorities from the six Western Balkans partners and the EU will tackle the issues of disinformation, social media and the challenges of professional journalism, and the importance of media literacy in the new media environment.
The first panel of the conference “Resilience to Disinformation: Common challenge for institutions, media and citizens” will showcase some of the challenges North Macedonia is facing in the area of disinformation, compare them to the experiences of other countries in the region and the EU, like Albania and Latvia, and explore the need for a holistic approach that should be taken by various actors in the society in addressing the issue of disinformation.
In the second panel “Reporting 2.0: Have social networks and disinformation redefined the reporting?” the ongoing digital transformation of journalism will be in the focus of the speakers. One of the questions the panel will ask is how to remain relevant, influential and trustworthy source in a constantly changing media environment.
The third panel “Digital Citizens: Navigating online in resilient manner” will focus on citizens’ skills, knowledge and behaviour as consumers and producers of media content. The panel will focus on the importance of media and information literacy as a condition for critical thinking, informed decision-making and for functional democracy.
The citizens will be able to follow and engage via Zoom. The event, which will start at 13:00, will also be streamed on the dedicated website.