Bulgarians remain the most media illiterate in the EU according to Open Society data. The ability to sift the true from the false content and to select the sources of information appears to be lacking for a large part of the population in South-Eastern Europe. In times of constant flow of information, lack of regulations on content in social networks and spreading propaganda, the problem of disorientation in the information space of society is extremely serious and has the potential to mislead public opinion, sometimes with severe consequences. The European Union even created its own definitions for the phenomena of "disinformation" and "misinformation", and the Covid-19 pandemic brought with it the euphonious "infodemic". All these terms summarize precisely the way in which the consumption of information has changed in recent years and the problems that social networks have brought.

This year's report on media literacy by the Open Society Institute identifies precisely the serious gaps in the knowledge of the information environment of people in our region and their critical thinking skills compared to the citizens of Western Europe and the Scandinavian countries. And unfortunately, the conclusion is that Bulgarians are the most media-illiterate in the entire union. And the main reason is mainly the big deficits in education and the problems with media freedom in Bulgaria. The lower ability of Bulgarians to recognize disinformation and fake news has been established by other studies, although the self-esteem of Bulgarians in this regard is as high as that of other Europeans.

The Media Literacy Report of the Open Society Institute has been prepared since 2017 among 35 EU member states, candidate countries for membership, potential candidate countries and the countries in closer relations with the EU - such as the European Economic Area, Switzerland and Great Britain. In 2022, the number of countries studied has been expanded to 41, but despite this change, the observed trend of presence of geographical dependencies in the results of the Old Continent is not disturbed - the well-known border between East and West is a fact, there are also discrepancies between North and South. Traditionally, the countries of Scandinavia occupy the leading positions in media literacy, while those of the Balkans are at the other end of the ranking.

Finland is in the top position with 76 points, followed by Norway (74 points) and Denmark (73 points). Scores are reported on a scale of 0 to 100, from lowest to highest score.

Bulgaria ranks 33rd out of 41 countries, but is last in the European Union. Ukraine and Serbia also rank before it. In the same group, but with a worse result, are Moldova, Montenegro and Turkey. At the bottom of the ranking is Georgia, preceded by North Macedonia (40th place) and Kosovo (39th).

Media literacy in this case is measured by a series of indicators with different weights - level of education in the respective country, media freedom and presence of pluralism and the degree of trust between people. Each parameter has a different coefficient, and together they form the final estimate.

Bulgaria performs worst on indicators that measure the quality of education (mainly PISA results), ranking 34th out of 41 countries. It also lags behind countries in the region that are outside the EU, such as Ukraine, Serbia and Turkey, but obtains similar results to those of Romania.

Education is an essential component in countering fake news, the report notes. For example, the government of Finland, which has topped the media literacy rankings for another year, sees a strong state education system as a key tool in countering disinformation, and "widespread critical thinking skills among the Finnish population and a coherent government response" are seen as key. In general, it is believed that more educated people are more informed, more critical thinkers and are less likely to fall into the trap of fabricated news. In terms of media freedom indicators, Bulgaria once again ranked an unenviable 32nd place. Although in the latest report of the independent organization for freedom of speech "Reporters Without Borders" the country "peeled off the bottom", mainly because of the political changes in the last year and a half and the overthrow of the GERB government from long-standing power, this does not seem to be enough to free expression is available. In a recent report by AEZ Bulgaria, it became clear that Bulgarian journalists are increasingly self-censoring and feeling more threatened.

In terms of trust between people, Bulgaria performs slightly better and occupies 29th place with a similar result to that of Portugal and just behind the Czech Republic, including ahead of another EU member - Croatia.