CNN quotes the Media Literacy Index of OSI-Sofia in its report on fighting fake news and Finland’s approach in tackling disinformation. The index features prominently in CNN’s Special Report entitled “Finland is winning the war on fake news. What it’s learned may be crucial to Western democracy” from May 2019, which is available at CNN’s website at https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2019/05/europe/finland-fake-news-intl/
The CNN material references the report “Common Sense Wanted: Media Literacy Index 2018”, which assesses the resilience potential to fake news and ‘post-truth’ of 35 European countries and is published in full at https://osis.bg/?p=121&lang=en . This is the second and latest edition of the Media Literacy Index, which was first released in 2017.
The OSI-Sofia report finds that the Northwestern European societies have higher resilience potential to fake news with better education, free media and high trust between people. In contrast, the Balkan countries are most vulnerable to the adverse effects of fake news and post-truth, with controlled media, deficiencies in education and lower trust in society. The report says that media freedom is imperative, but sometimes overlooked factor, to tackling post-truth and fake news, considering also that people still tend to trust traditional media more as opposed to social networks. The Media Literacy Index findings also emphasize that education remains the key component in dealing with the post-truth phenomenon – as the general education level as well as tailored media literacy training.
