In this fragile situation, which is burdened day by day with pieces of subcultural information, with various “frustrations”, with injections behind which stand regular interest groups, it is important to emphasize the need for information perception redimension. In no case we will be able to perceive good information without a cultural uplift, without a wider field of view, which goes beyond the schemes offered as ready-made narratives produced by various propaganda machines.
Author: Bardhyl Zaimi
The online world remains flooded with information. As much as we try to simplify it in the perception of rightous and accurate information, it appears complicated in its plurality that is often overwhelmed by the fog of chaos. Human life can no longer be thought of outside the media as information that dictates the interaction of the social strata as interdependent power groups, but also the interaction with the functioning of institutions that remains the daily and permanent essence of citizens’ lives.
It has already been proven that the quality of information that is received also depends on the quality of democracy as a space where human beings dimension their own political, social and cultural existence. The higher the quality of information, the higher the perception of social developments, of the overall context in which the dynamics of political and social life are conceived. And, on the contrary, the lower this quality of information reception, the lower remains the fair perception of developments, events, of all that implies democratic life. Qualitative information is attacked on all four sides, because everybody requires dominance and primacy in the field of politics and hierarchy. Among the many attacks there can be highlighted two poles that are constantly trying to flush out quality information from the public space. On one side of the field lies the lack of institutional transparency, while on the other side lie the often cheeky “deformers” who constantly play with half-truths, with accidental stories unilaterally fabricated in the name of a “nonconformist” opposition, and in most of all the cases are nothing but a personal agenda set on the ruins of general interest. In fact, it seems that the whole media space, especially online, remains dominated by the pervasive battle between the PR information of institutions that try to brutally impose their truth outside the principles of transparency, fair information and counter-information that is not in function of existing realities, but always in the service of another manipulation with tones of political power and certain ideological causes. In such circumstances, it is very difficult to constitute a well-attended space for the presence and circulation of qualitative information that remains the main predisposition for the establishment of a normal political and democratic environment. The distorted information flows over whose backs “blow” the winds of ideological causes and discourses have decomposed to the highest heights the paradox of credibility and unbelief. The reliability that comes with the creepy fabrication of mysterious factors and the unbelief that comes with extreme suspicion, as well as relativization of that scarce objective information.
However, in the midst of this chaos that is emerging in various forms and where above all, fair and qualitative information suffers, there are already internationally promoted basic principles that come in the form of statements. One such internationally accepted principle is the International Declaration on Information and Democracy initiated by Reporters Without Borders.
The space for communication and information must guarantee the freedom, independence and pluralism of news and information. As a common good, this space has social, cultural and democratic value and should not be reduced to its commercial dimension alone. Dominant positions in the production and dissemination of information should be prevented in order to maintain a diversity of facts and views.
A study by Yolande Maury on the socio-cultural context of information extensively addresses all actors that impose a different approach on information perception in the time of digital convergence. A new vision of media education proposes a social practice, shaped by culture and context, undermining traditional standards, in a sense close to the definition of information culture.
It is precisely in this line that there is a need to explore new realities in the media space, especially in dealing with information in social networks. This set remains described by many defects that appear in various forms. There remains a situation that implies the brutality of anonymity that claims to occupy a place in the public space, in the online space in the cruelest possible forms, stigmatizing, invoking a unexistant morality, and bursting the impulses of a mediocre personal interest which is of general interest in the field of information and communication in the public space.
In this fragile situation, which is burdened day by day with pieces of subcultural information, with various “frustrations”, with injections behind which stand regular interest groups, it is important to emphasize the need for information perception redimension. In no case will we be able to perceive good information without a cultural uplift, without a wider field of view, which goes beyond the schemes offered as ready-made narratives produced by various propaganda machines. Obviously, in this venture, which also includes media education, reading books is introduced as an opportunity to expand the space of self-realization of our being in the political and cultural dimension. Outside of this premise, the human being risks being exposed to various dogmas, which aim at absorbing freedom, proper cultivation, and the democratic action of the individual.
Cultivating reading culture may be the only counterbalance to hazard information that is imposed for propaganda purposes. It is precisely this cultural uplift that enables qualitative information to be accepted, while the human being as a subject in this new digital convergence interaction is now able to select and observe relevant information. This really creates a new predisposition in the democratic space, a breakthrough towards more substantive things related to culture, humanity and the system of universal values. Without these profoundly socio-cultural predispositions, the individual runs the risk of being held hostage to predestined schemes that do not count human beings as a free spirit and an active citizen, but as a number in endless ideological calculations and personal interest.