Dragan Janjic Media Literacy Prize Winners Announced

Dragan Janjic (BETAPHOTO/Emil Vas)

Jelena Jovovic and Stefan Janjic are this year's winners of the Dragan Janjic Media Literacy Award in the professional category, while Teodora Culibrk and Bozidar Milovac won in the undergraduate category, it was announced on May 13.

The paper Basics of Nestorology: An Analysis of Narratives in the Book "Between Two Worlds," by Jelena Jovovic and Stefan Janjic, looks at Dr Branimir Nestorovic's most popular book. By analyzing the ways in which Nestorovic presents and interprets important medical and public health data, the paper highlights both accurate and proven claims, and numerous disputable assertions, instances of self-plagiarism, conspiracy theory, poor translation, and unreliable sources that form the basis for claims in the book. The jury concluded that, at a time of flourishing popular science and contemporary media providing platforms for various self-proclaimed experts and analysts, the work of Jovovic and Janjic represents an example of using media literacy as a survival guide in a world of pseudoscience and conspiracy theories.

The article by the undergraduates Teodora Culibrk and Bozidar Milovac, titled The Dimension of Media Manipulation - Reality and Illusion, was written amid persecution and threats against journalists across Vojvodina, the most notable of which -- in manner, duration, intensity and character, was the campaign against Dinko Gruhonjic, a professor at the Novi Sad Faculty of Philosophy, Media Studies Department. The text highlights the adjusting of news to the social context and political situation, and the degree to which society is susceptible to media manipulation.

The jury members were media literacy expert Marijana Matovic, Sasa Mirkovic of the Faculty of Media and Communications and Beta News Agency executive director Zlata Kures. The awards will be presented at the Balkan movie theater [Brace Jugovica 16] on May 16 at 6 p.m. as part of a ceremony marking 30 years since BETA was established. The Beta News Agency and the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia have been awarding the Dragan Janjic Media Literacy Prize in remembrance of Dragan Janjic, one of the founders of BETA and the Association, since 2022.