Media literacy: Need or necessity in the 21 century?

The media play a key role in connecting people with other members of the community and society. They enable them to share common experiences and, through the process of mutual communication, to create a sense of belonging to common society. The advent of the Internet in the 1990s and its dynamic development in the first two decades of the XXI century drastically changed the structure of the media system. At the same time, the media in this post-modern world are the primary source of information for citizens about domestic and world developments. Consequently, as much as they are sources of information, on the other hand, they are a suitable ground for the development of “side-effect” phenomena in the media world, namely the spread of fake news, propaganda, and misinformation. Hence, the research question arises from the emerging need to prevent the rapid spread of these phenomena in order to raise the level of awareness of citizens. The main purpose of this paper is to emphasize the need for media education and the development of the skill set of the 21st century in the Republic of North Macedonia, including critical reading and understanding as one of the ways to detect new phenomena. European regulations and recommendations as well as the trend of UNESCO policy development have imposed the need to popularize this issue, which is undoubtedly complemented by the realization of citizens’ rights. The Republic of North Macedonia needs to revise the relevant legislation and perhaps provide a different perspective on media treatment, and formally include media and information literacy as an integral part of education programs from an early age.