THE ROLE OF CRITICAL THINKING IN THE DIGITAL MEDIA CULTURE AND STENGHTENING OF DIGITAL IMMUNITY

Text topic: Critiques

Text author: Маја J. Зарић

The public health emergency and the proclaimed state of the global pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus have led to the biggest world crisis since World War II. With the introduction of quarantine measures in spring 2020, the digital transformation has accelerated in many societies and the importance of media and information literacy in these new circumstances has been clearly emphasized. The pandemic has changed the information and media habits of the citizens, work from home was introduced, online school classes became mandatory, and an uprise of e-commerce reflected the new reality. The digital space has become oversaturated with informative, educational, commercial contents and many cultural institutions and international organizations have made their cultural heritage accessible online. Interaction in the public digital space has became more and more intense, and critical thinking stood out as a necessity for strengthening the digital immunity of each individual as well as the society. The pandemia was followed by infodemia. The information channels used by citizens point to a certain re-examination of the new digital media culture, the very concept of media as well as the accompanying regulations and media policy. The findings of the paper draw attention to the media and information literacy policy framework in Serbia, and review a set of activities that the Ministry of Culture and Media has been conducting over the past two years on both national and international level. It describes the correlation between the framework and the practice and depicts the trends in the international policy in this field. The paper focuses on the strategic vision and provides information throughout the two year period on setting up of the holistic 360 approach and setting up media literacy network of stakeholders with the aim of strengthening advocacy and developing of the media literacy field.