Public association sets up study on phenomenon of misinformation in Gagauzia

Chisinau, April 21 /MOLDPRES/- The phenomenon of disinformation in Gagauzia: actors and countermeasures is the topic of an analytical note, set up by the ADEPT Association with the financial support of the European Union.

According to the study, the phenomenon is explained by the fact that in countries like the Republic of Moldova, until recently, the mass media was controlled by certain political parties through their leaders or people affiliated with them. Accordingly, political parties with leaders who own the mass media, with access to financial resources from obscure sources, have the possibility of influencing the opinions of citizens through all kinds of projects, such as a network of social shops or charity funds. "Their purpose is to use the mass media to gain access to government and use administrative levers for enrichment. This kind of influence of citizens' opinions has not been uprooted until now," the quoted source says.

"In addition to being a flawed democracy, Moldova is also segmented from an ethno-linguistic and socio-economic point of view. Under these conditions, narrower or wider segments of citizens are usually in search of information and opinions, which confirm their shared visions and viewpoints. The effects of this phenomenon are amplified by virtue of the fact that people naturally communicate more intensively with their peers, with whom they feel more comfortable, or are under the influence of the same stereotypes, etc. The mentioned phenomenon is qualified as slipping into the captivity of the so-called information bubbles - situations in which people become consumers only of information that corresponds to the values and opinions they share", writes the ADEPT.

The term information bubble was put into circulation more than 10 years ago, when it was found empirically that the natural inclination of people to save the time and intellectual resources needed to constantly process huge volumes of information in the search for the truth about happening events and ongoing phenomena. "Respectively, the flip side of the coin is that saving time and resources, people often fall into the nets of information bubbles, which drastically limit access to alternative, inconvenient, but important information from the point of view of establishing the truth. Experience shows that only a critical attitude towards the information received, including from sources considered credible, can save us from the danger of being trapped by informational bubbles", the study reads.

According to the Code of audiovisual media services of the Republic of Moldova, disinformation means the intentional dissemination of false information, created to harm a person, a social group, an organization or state security.

Photo: ADEPT