Conference on fake news and media in Central and Eastern Europe/ How Generation Z distinguishes misinformation in Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia/ From fast information consumption to „I can do it myself”

Generation Z in Central and Eastern European countries and how they relate to the media, including how they detect fake news and how they react to it, were the topics of discussion with foreign experts from the 5 countries plus Romania at the conference „Joining Forces Against Misinformation: Societal Resilience in Central and Eastern Europe”, the SCIENCE+ Regional Conference of Free Press for Eastern Europe, which took place in Bucharest.

Jowita Radzinska from the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Poland who coordinated the research in the 5 countries spoke about the main characteristics of perception among Generation Z.

• „News to use”: a very important thing for the young audience. They want to feel that they are aware of what is going on but they want the news to be useful for them but it also should be consumed conveniently: on the way, during the breaks, when is easy and fast for them, said Radzinska. 
• The respondents showed a very high confidence in media literacy, it is considered important but there is a lack of interest in investment, practice, of making any effort to improve those skills. 

• Our respondents don’t feel responsible to identify disinformation, they consider media and journalists responsible for checking news, and they also expect the state and law to put up some barriers. 
• The need for a critical approach is associated with sharing of information, not consuming the information. What is the strategy for surviving the information deluge? 
• Young people believe in their gut feeling, intuition is very important, trust in first hand narratives, filters and limits, the risk is that they stay in their information bubble and they are aware of this fact. Many take scepticism as a recipe for everything and we know how risky this approach is. 
• Expectations and needs – I think it’s a known fact that they want to receive news in a simple and fast and entertaining way. They see media literacy as necessary
• We need to be aware though that there is a big difference between statements and practice. During interviews they have built up a certain image, it does not necessarily mean that all answers correspond to reality.

Dimitra Voeva, Head of Research Department, Trend Research Center, Bulgaria spoke about the characteristics of Generation Z in her country. 

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• The need of media literacy education
• For young people in Bulgaria, active search for information was not a habit; but they are exposed to a daily flow of information because they spend a lot of time on social networks: Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, etc., is characteristic for their age group. 
• Some of the participants form their opinions on politics based on opinions and comments on Facebook; they are exposed to misleading information and may not distinguish between facts and opinions. At the beginning not all participants could understand the concept of media literacy without further clarification. When we clarified, some agreed that not everyone around them corresponds to a media literate person, they agreed that it is very important but it is not clear if it really reflects the importance of this topic 
• Distinguishing between fact and opinion proved very challenging for participants in both focus groups, they could not explain how exactly they decide that a piece of information is a fact or is an opinion and this indicates that perhaps they have not considered this issue before, perhaps it was the first time they had asked themselves 
• They openly admitted that it is very difficult to tell the difference, and this is especially true when it comes to politics.
• They have challenges when they have to formulate an opinion on a certain topic and said they check with family or friends to get different perspectives and more sources on a particular piece of information. They also said they rely on personal intuition.
• Although they said media literacy is important, they do not make efforts to improve their skills. 
• In both focus groups there was scepticism about the accuracy of information in the media, they found news or views that were contradictory making it very difficult for them to form a clear opinion. 
• There is an awareness of the potential for fake news and misinformation , some put that when a piece of information is presented similarly by more than one source, it means it is true; some took a more critical approach.
• Differences – those in a smaller town say that if a piece of information appears on TV it is a guarantee that it is not fake news. Those in Sofia were more sceptical about this. 
• Several participants said they had encountered fake news and this has an impact on their trust in the media in general. One participant even said that after finding out that one piece of information in the media was fake he started thinking that maybe all the others are the same, which decreases his trust in the media.

Bencze Sagvari, Senior research fellow at the Centre for Social Sciences, HUN-REN Hungarian Research Network, Hungary

• Young people in Hungary are even more passive than others in the region when it comes to information. They have a strong feeling that politics is not in their interest and nobody represents their interests. They are rather inactive on the subject online and offline, political participation is not among their favourite activities. 
• There was a recent rally where young people participated but it was organised through online networks, by influencers, not by politicians or traditional media. Around 150,000 people marched in Budapest’s central square. 

• Other features: conformity and polarisation, I mean polarisation of values, certainly liberal and environmental values are the most obvious for generation Z 
• But there are also those who represent family values – they are important, which contributes to polarisation
• They don’t tend to be rebellious.
• Positioning is clear on pro-European and Western orientation. 
• At the same time, there is the topic of migration: a field with a lot of information and misinformation in recent years and many researches have shown that rejection of migration is high , since the migrant crisis in 2018; so on this aspect, rejection of migration, young people are no different from older people. Of course and some of the factors such as education, student status – affect the perception. 
• Trust in the media: what was discussed about Romania and Bulgaria is generally true. 
• Political news – mostly rely on big portals but generally consume content in a „snacking” style – not part of daily routine, sometimes they watch, sometimes not, but don’t go for in-depth articles, just look at headlines, also much of what they see they see on social media
• They like „ready-made” content that seems attractive to them. The biggest challenge for media literacy and building trust is that they are increasingly sticking to short information like a Tiktok slide and leaving little room for long arguments, opening up multiple perspectives; that would take more time to understand so it’s somewhat at odds with how media can gain trust .
• Trust in the media: the level is generally low, only politicians are lower in trust. 
• Fake news: In research they say they know how to deal with fake news. That they have the right sensors and use them. But it’s a false confidence, which stems from a lack of media literacy, that they have the skills to spot fake news, and it’s not just happening in Hungary. I had an example just yesterday here in class (in the US), I told the students to identify fake news vs real speeches of known figures. With my help they were able to identify ⅓ of the correct answers, I think this is one of the biggest challenges of the coming years until there is regulation or control for these technologies in the media. 
• Support for the war – Hungarian narratives have been contradictory from the beginning at the level of government communication. 
• We had 2 parallel realities. Pro-Government media, which had messages favorable to or blaming both sides and opposition media, which blamed Russia. In 2022 in the Hungarian elections involvement in the war was the main narrative and the message from the Government was that they are pro-peace and the opposition is pro-war. 
• It was a simplistic and dichotomous presentation, which affected the perception and attitude of young people because it was difficult to get past the simplistic view as it was presented, they became increasingly skeptical of the media and the war itself.

Barbora Hronova, Head of Qualitative Research, InsighLab, Czechia

„I don’t need you, I can handle it myself” – this can be the motto of our research in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. 

• We see Gen Z self-confidence when we talk about media literacy and disinformation, this confidence is not based on real skills.  There are big differences in the attitude towards media between the two countries, a big distrust in Slovakia, in the state, institutions, politicians but also in the media and this has a profound effect on media behaviour. They consider themselves well informed, they try to be aware and to be prepared for what is to come. They follow multiple sources (especially online media).
• In Slovakia, young people follow public profiles of politicians and journalists, they want to be close to the original source of information. 
• We observe different perceptions of thematic coverage in the media in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Czech: they are satisfied with the way topics are covered, they find what interests them. In Slovakia, they say there is too much negative news, about war especially in Ukraine, about international issues, green, LGBT, they prefer more positive, local news, about people, which can be motivation for them.
• How they deal with misinformation – and here we see a high level of trust. Respondents say they can recognise misinformation. What they find questionable: overly sensational headlines, unknown sources, contradictory information, language full of mistakes. They see misinformation as dangerous and associate it with entertainment and confusing someone, they cannot associate it with war propaganda or political influence.   
• But there was a time when they realised the real danger of disinformation: during the Covid 19 pandemics. 
• The most common and perhaps the only strategy – trying to find another source of information, either on the internet or talking to family or other colleagues. There is no specific strategy to verify information, self-confidence is very high. 
• In Slovakia we also had the response of „Who knows what the truth is”- which shows distrust and frustration, distrust that the truth can be found out. 
• In the Czech Republic we showed them a video of the President edited to change the meaning of the President’s speech. In Slovakia I showed them a picture of Olena Zelenski’s Israeli passport. 
• Most found them misleading. The reasons: bad quality of video editing, that the president’s attitude didn’t match the message in the video. Asked what the next steps would be, respondents said they would ignore them. 
• How respondents see the future of information: fear of the development of AI applications, the growth of AI-generated information, almost impossible to sort and distinguish information. They see media literacy as important and that it will be even more important in the future but do nothing for media literacy activities per se. 
• Expectations: in the Czech Republic, the role of media is expected to be strengthened, to be a guarantor of quality content 
• In Slovakia: feeling of mistrust, feeling helpless. The future is associated with fear and worry.
• Recommendations. For media: specific stories, in context, explainer, local stories, these seem to be the best ways to explain background and context 
• They are not interested in news about the conflict in Ukraine but when I presented the story of Ukrainian doctors they became interested. 
• Balance between form and content. 
• For media education, the best way would be to offer it in different forms, by different institutions, as a kind of guides, not as „teaching” but as guidance, to explain that everyone is vulnerable.