Audrey Azoulay: Media Literacy in COVID Era More Important than Ever  

Ana Brnabic (BETAPHOTO/VLADA SRBIJE/SLOBODAN MILJEVIC/MO)

Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Audrey Azoulay said on April 23 that media literacy was very important, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic, when so much false information was being published and massively propagated on social media.

Hence the necessity to develop critical thinking, Azoulay said in her speech at an online conference called, Media and Information Literate Citizens: Think Critically, Click Wisely, where the second edition of the UNESCO Model Media and Information Literacy Curriculum for Educators and Learners was presented.

"In these times we need critical minds more than ever before," she underlined in a video message. "If we propagate false medicines we are undermining the efforts of science and jeopardizing the lives of people as well," Azoulay said.

Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said at the conference that fake news coming in through the media and social networks had exacerbated the problems caused by the pandemic. "It all made the fight against Covid-19 twice as hard. In other words, we would have achieved better results and saved more lives if we hadn't had to fight fake news, too," she said.