Skopje, 7 February 2017 – Today, the Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services presented the results of the “Research into Media Literacy among Adult Population in the Republic of Macedonia”.
“This research is of tremendous importance because it is the first of this kind in Macedonia and it will constitute the basis for building policies and planning projects for the promotion of media literacy in Macedonia, as well as the criterion for measuring their successfulness,” stated the Agency Director, Mr. Zoran Trajchevski, PhD, in the introductory part of the event.
Ms. Nadezda Pop-Kostova of Target Communications – the entity that conducted this research for the needs of the Agency – held a presentation on the issues related to the critical understanding of media contents and citizens’ readiness to take active part in the democratic processes in society.
“Should they spot substantial differences in the media’ reporting on one and the same event, 45.90% of the respondents stated they would discard the same or ignore all published information on this event. A total of 49.64% of the respondents consider that television stations must be free-minded in order to be objective and creative, while 48.92% fully agree that TV viewers have to be protected from viewing inappropriate or offensive programmes,” stated Ms. Pop-Kostova in her presentation.
The detailed research results, which present the answers to the questions separately, based on the demographic characteristics of the sample, with the aim of enabling the institutions, researchers and all interested stakeholders to use them according to the needs of their analyses and the documents they prepare, are published on the Agency’s website, at this link.
At the event, a debate was also opened about the formation of a media literacy network that would incorporate the relevant stakeholders (public institutions and ministries, privately-owned and public broadcasters, citizen organizations and educational institutions). The aim is to facilitate communication among the various stakeholders in society that play a role in the development of media literacy and to enable closer cooperation among them.
The Agency considers that by sharing information within the framework, everyone can contribute to the realization of the projects, and that it would be useful to publish information and news in an online bulletin or to inform the European public about them through the European Association for Viewers’ Interests, with which the Agency has concluded a cooperation agreement.
The Agency announced it was also preparing materials on media literacy (a DVD and a small brochure), intended for use by elementary school teachers in planning their teaching contents related to media literacy.