Nikos Panagiotou, Associate Professor at the School of Journalism and Mass Media Communications of Aristotle University, discussed the risks of disinformation and strategies to combat them on a podcast hosted by the Athens Macedonian News Agency. He highlighted the “trap” of fast news, where accuracy is often sacrificed for the sake of speed.
Professor Panagiotou also emphasized the widespread lack of trust in official sources of information, noting that many people do not even trust doctors. This distrust often leads to the spread of fake news. “This lack of trust means that someone can join various social media communities, see anything, and share it without a second thought”, he explained. Additionally, he stressed the importance of digital literacy, proposing the implementation of digital literacy programs starting from primary school to enhance users’ skills. Finally, he discussed the activities of the Peace Journalism Laboratory in combating fake news.
You can listen to the podcast in Greek here
