Known factors Teens, textbooks, and reels
This information is widely known, yet institutions and civil society organizations in Bulgaria continue to struggle with encouraging young people to engage more thoughtfully with the content. The content consumption habits of this age group are largely ignored. Young people engage with social networks, communication apps, and video platforms on a daily basis, while classic information channels such as TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, and books hardly find a place in their routine. This observation is supported by numerous surveys conducted among this age group, including one conducted by UNICEF in Bulgaria in 2020.
The survey also found that short videos are the main and preferred format for children and young people, with YouTube as the preferred platform for accessing them. The most successful information campaigns are those that rely on short video content. Across all surveyed age groups(10-15, 15-20, 20-24), there is a strong preference for lifestyle videos, music videos, videos on health and fitness, and video series. UNICEF’s work identifies that informative and socially oriented content garners low interest, posing a challenge in communicating such messages with younger audiences.
How has the Media Literacy Coalition worked in this environment?
Considering the challenges of communicating socially charged messages to young audiences, the Media Literacy Coalition launched a video contest on media literacy in 2023. The contest targets young people - both as its audience and as participants in the video competition itself. People aged 14-35 can participate by submitting a video no longer than 35 seconds on the topic of media literacy. There is no script provided, but there are guidelines to help participants refine their message and presentation. The Coalition has run the competition for a second consecutive year, receiving over 50 applications each year, primarily from high school and university students.
The main goal is not to upload the winning videos online and reach the target audience directly, but rather to inspire young people who live in the online space and aspire to be video creators to engage with the topic of media literacy in a format in which they are comfortable with - namely, video. By inspiring them to attempt to be video creators, they develop key competencies outlined in the EU’s digital competence framework. These include knowledge of copyrighting and licensing, creative use of digital technologies, managing digital identity, and more. Beyond this, their work is meaningful itself, adding educational content to the “ocean” of misinformation young people encounter online daily.
A path forward
At the same time, other factors shape the profile of a young person in the country beyond their content consumption habits. Bulgaria ranks among the top four EU countries for young people aged 15-34 who are neither in employment, education, nor training. The factors influencing the profile of these people include education, ethnicity, family environment, family income, and more. When young adults find themselves disengaged from both the labor market and the educational system, many risks arise “both for the individual and, in the long run, for society”. One possible consequence is that young people become more susceptible to disinformation narratives due to a lack of access to an environment where reliable information is shared. In this context, engaging young audiences through video format is suitable, however, it is largely insufficient to address the needs of this demographic in the country.
To address this challenge, the NGO sector alone cannot bring about scalable change for a significant portion of the country’s youth. The main challenge that remains is for policymakers to recognize the importance of this issue and to support long-term media literacy programs and education initiatives that institutionalize efforts and make tools and knowledge accessible to young people across the country. While media content is taught in schools to some extent and there has been progress in modernizing the Bulgarian education system over the last decade, the key step to advance media literacy education is still missing. Specifically, there needs to be a comprehensive, systematic, and multidisciplinary curriculum focused on developing students’ cognitive skills.
Author: Mirela Petkova
Background illustration: A snapshot of from video by David Mitev submitted for the Media Literacy Coalition’s video competition in 2023.
This article was published in partnership with Funky Citizens
