Keywords

1 Introduction

In the present time, communication via the Internet is growing. This fact is especially true for young people. Research shows that social networks positioned on the Internet are constantly increasing their audiences, especially among adolescents [1]. Despite the tendencies to reduce communication with the long-time favorite - television, it turns out that 69% of young people in Bulgaria watch television every day. Out of them, 23% are young people, who spend more than 3 h a day on average [2]. By providing platforms for creating and disseminating a mix of culture and codes the new communication technologies enable both traditional and new media to equip themselves with new digital tools for influencing and diversifying effects on the audience.

This article aims to highlight the role of traditional and new media in the context of Covid-19 and to highlight the extent of their consolidating function. The research questions addressed in the article are: To what extent traditional and new digital media have become an element of people’s lives under Covid-19 conditions? Which of the varieties of digital media are perceived as reliable sources of information in times of crisis? Is there an urgent need for new digital media literacy of people to screen out the diverse and even contradictory information from media, presupposed by political and professional goals, attitudes, biases, etc.? The article shows that people are beginning to perceive critical information in terms of screening out unreliable and even fake news; that the use of digital interactive tools imposes the requirement to improve the digital literacy of society.

2 Basic Considerations

Digital communication technologies have offered the possibility of new media formats for social communication and expression. Geographical boundaries are no longer a problem, comprehensiveness, easy access, and processing of content have been ensured, individuals have transformed in media, etc. Another significant contribution of communication technologies is the opportunity for convergence provided by them, which allows combining different media, capacity, focusing on different audiences. In this context, media influence can be seen as a result of audiences’ dependence on the preferred media through which people are informed [3]. The media says what people should think about but not what they think [4]. This is how the idea of ​​the connection between the media agenda (what they talk about) and society’s agenda (what people are interested in) develops and, in this sense, the media’s priorities and potential influences.

The more significant a topic is, the more it affects society, the greater the interest in media and the motivation to use them. The relationship between public needs and goals, on the one hand, and the ability of the media to meet and satisfy them on the other leads to the creation of a comprehensive system and organization of institutions, norms, and standards for the use of the media. The interaction of society within this system constantly generates media influence concerning the most important areas - politics, economics, culture, etc.

The media shape our culture. But media messages contain ideological and value statements that are understood subjectively [5].

With the transformation of new media into the preferred media among adolescents, the need for media literacy to better understand the processes in society and full participation in democratic and cultural changes in it has grown [6].

New media and social networks have another important consequence for adolescents - they revealed themselves in a parallel environment for acquiring knowledge. This fact has made digital literacy a fundamental right of every citizen, has become a pledge for personal development and participation. Reflexivity has become a starting point and a necessary condition, structuring young people’s attitudes to think critically about what they see, i.e., to understand why they like or dislike certain programs or genres, and analyze their preferences [7].

Academic interest in digital literacy issues in the technology age and the information world outlines the multidisciplinary of computer-human or, more generally, human-communication technologies and applications [8, 9]. Not coincidentally, to better understand the nature of digital competences, the European Framework for Citizens’ Digital Competence is being developed within the EU [10].

Another critical step is the European Action Plan on Digital Education - 2021–2027, which includes several priority areas: better use of digital technologies for teaching and learning; development of digital competencies and skills; better data analysis and prediction to improve digital learning [11].

The Plan emphasizes learning from the lockdown imposed by COVID-19 when technology becomes a key priority in coping with the crisis throughout social life.

3 Materials and Methods

The article presents a primary analysis of an original sociological study conducted by the authors on the first half of the management of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis. The choice of topic was provoked not only by the significance and reflections of the pandemic on basic human values ​​- life and health but also by the circumstance that it provoked serious changes in many social spheres and activities. On the other hand, due to the fact that it received the largest, and so far the longest, media coverage.

The national survey was conducted in the period 29 April–03 May 2020 with the method of an individual direct online survey with 906 respondents over the age of 18 from all over Bulgaria. As far as the results allow, comparisons are made with the results of research conducted and published in scientific journals in Europe and the United States based on attempts for secondary analysis.

4 Results

4.1 Trust the Pandemic Management Authorities

The topic of trust in sources of information and institutions proved to be crucial for the success of the crisis management with the COVID-19 pandemic and the challenges facing the consolidating role of media in times of crisis.

The National Operational Headquarters, established under the Bulgarian government to ensure transparency and deal with the country’s pandemic crisis, was met with ambiguity, even negativizes, by certain groups.

Although it proved to be a successful guideline for the majority of people, confirmed by a series of studies on the subject in the country, and acted as a safeguard against any dissemination of false, partially true, or unverified information, it was subject to certain discredits, including by medics [12]. Our research revealed that the reasons for the differences in the Headquarters' assessments are predominantly political, related to the political situation and the attitude of leading political leaders to the pandemic. In this sense, it was not surprising that the ambiguity of the assessment of how to deal with the crisis is largely explained by: the political attitudes and orientations of individual media - according to 48.8% of the respondents in the survey; the political bias of specific analysts and professionals - according to 43.7% of the respondents; the professionalism of journalists - according to 5, 1% of respondents.

In the column “others”, there was no lack of explanations with conspiracy theories.

This politically determined fact corresponds to research conducted in the United States [13].

4.2 Trust the Media as Sources of Information About the Pandemic

The study found that people have the most trust in television regardless of its public or private nature.

Television proved to be a strongly predominant source of information for people and an on-screen tool for recreating images and pictures of existing pandemic realities in Europe and the world that people trust. Other representative studies from abroad also confirm similar facts. To the question: “Which source do you feel gives you the best information & updates on the Coronavirus?“. Conducted by the world agency TVB in 2020, televisions are ranked first with 54%. They are followed by government websites with 27% and social media with 12%. 7% is allocated to newspapers; 6% to the radio; 5% are all other internet news web applications [13,14,15]. TV is ranked highest among other media also in September 2020 [15].

4.3 The Media in Supporting a New Type of Health Behavior

The special accents placed in many of the TV channels through the traditional columns and by creating new news columns, the variety of points of view and the presence of analysts with opposite (albeit rare) points of view, the increased discussions on the topic on social networks, etc. proved to be relatively sufficient even for new phenomena such as Covid-19. To the question of whether they consider that special broadcasts or articles are sufficient for “literacy” on this particularly important topic for health, the answers are positive.

Nearly half of the respondents (46, 3%) answered that the programs on television, from which they were mainly informed, were enough and sufficient to get an idea of Covid-19.

Information materials from specialized sites and publications providing relevant information turned out to be relatively complete additions to television sources. Social networks are also being revealed as a guide to pandemic issues. Instead of the typical implementation of social contacts, they began searching for predominantly informational materials, and in about 20% of respondents even they emerged as a new environment for discussing pandemic problems in the social network.

The study revealed that specialized websites, blogs, and the social network Facebook had been transforming into an environment to meet information needs and were sought more as sources of additional information about Covid-19.

The search for other social networks - Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, etc. also corresponds to meeting information needs. The study revealed a new phenomenon in social networks. It is a question of internal shifts in the ratios of the functional uses of the separate social networks, namely the information uses, which precede the other uses in them. With about 15.9% expressed preferences for information through social networks for Covid-19, Bulgaria proved to be comparable with other countries, including European ones.

Particularly clear confirmation of the internal restructuring of uses in social networks is found in the results of a study by the British research agency Statista [16], related to the trust in information about Covid-19 from social networks, which does not exceed one third for any of the varieties of social networks. With 13% trust in the survey of Statista and more than three times more distrust, the social network Facebook ranks last in trust. YouTube turned out to have the highest confidence in the information about Covid-19 and, respectively, with the lowest distrust (15%).

Social media is in the last place in terms of the trust (87%), behind even the print media (93%), which ranks immediately after the websites of the institutions (94%), which have a second significant increase in information trust by + 28 points. What comes to the fore from almost all known research on this issue is that Covid-19 gave a new impetus to television regained its importance in crisis circumstances [178].

According to the global agency Nielsen, in the first few weeks of the pandemic alone, TV viewing preferences are estimated at 60% in the United States. According to data from the European Union on Radio and Television (2020), the audience of the evening news on European public television also increased by 14% at the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis in Europe compared to the figures recorded in early 2020 [17].

4.4 Reliability of Information. Fake News

Closely related to the issue of trust in institutions and sources of information is the reliability of information about Covid-19. Especially when you consider the relationship of the disseminated allegations and information as reflections of political affiliations and power ambitions.

Information is defined as a mechanism for overcoming indefiniteness and uncertainty [18]; Feenstra et al. [19] define information products as vital civic tools, including propaganda purposes and political abuses. The modern media ecosystem, saturated with a constantly growing number of traditional and new digital channels and platforms, and an unlimited number of disseminators of information, including politicians, sympathizers, and trolls belonging to them, proved to be an environment for increased misinformation during Covid-19. Bennet and Livingston explain the increased misinformation not only by the political polarization, fragmentation, and configuration of a very high choice media environment but also by the rise of populism [20,21,22].

And while television has traditionally played a key role in the political information environment today, social media is being used more and more dynamically to spread news, including fake news [23,24,25]. Moreover, they are defined as the largest in scale and speed generator of the creation and dissemination of their invention.

That is why it is extremely important to deal with the screening of true and false information. The results of our study are encouraging. Despite the diversifying digital difficulties, just over 12% are people who definitely can not cope with this problem, but the share of those who say that they sometimes have difficulty is relatively high.

Fig. 1.
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Recognizing the reliability of the information

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The fact that about 80% of the respondents believe that they do not have specialized skills for recognizing false information is particularly indicative. The emergence and dissemination of specialized digital tools and videos to deal with in recent years, as well as the European project “Media Literacy for All”, are an expression of Europe’s demand and concern about the spreading “widespread misinformation of citizens, including through misleading or downright false information” [26].

The confrontation of the society with the problem of the reliability of the information presented in media is an indicator of the environmental friendliness of our social system as a whole, respectively the morale of the institutions in particular, as well as the decline in confidence in them.

5 Discussion and Conclusions

The main goal we set in the study was to highlight the role of the media in consolidating people to deal with the global pandemic crisis Covid-19.

Our survey revealed that, in general, about 80 percent of Bulgarian respondents trust the information about the danger of the spread of Covid-19. Television highlighted its role as a major source of information about the pandemic, including mass consolidation of the population.

Internet sites, blogs, social networks, the press, radio, etc., are strengthening their information presented in the media space and, together with the leading role of television, are the mechanisms for consolidating the nation.

There are several value-determined sociological explanations for the predominant positive acceptance of the measures related to limiting the spread of Covid-19 in our country, as well as the assessment of those responsible for governmental responsibility- pronounced existential needs (direct connection with the preservation of human health and life); the presence of strong interests for the preservation of health and life (implementation of the measures according to the circumstances, forces and possibilities); preliminary attitudes towards the actions of the highest political and managerial persons, respectively towards their efficiency; motivational arguments - a relative guarantee that compliance with the measures is a prerequisite for preserving human life and health.

Another important conclusion that comes to the fore is that traditional media, television in particular, and government websites are increasing during the crisis. Our research also highlighted the restructuring of people’s trust in the reliability of information within the social networks themselves. YouTube stood out as the network with the strongest trust, and Facebook, on the contrary, with the lowest. Other studies also confirm this trend. Facebook again turned out to have the largest increase in the spread of fake news about the pandemic. In most cases, they result from the policies and power ambitions of the political forces’ leaders.

Digital media literacy, accompanied by frequent confrontational messages, especially during pandemics, has proved critical to the overall social, not just media, environmental friendliness. The new digital skills and the related skills for critical reading of information of various forms and contents are so far the only possible levers for dealing with the growing populist props and the onset of misinformation.

We are convinced that no matter how high or low the media's consolidating role, it turns out to be strongly dependent on the preliminary intentions to the interpretations of facts and data about the ongoing processes and on the preliminary attitudes towards the interpretations of the undertaken policies. Responsibilities for disseminating verified information are the biggest ethical challenges for consolidation in our time, especially when they are the basis for controlling or pre-venting vital processes among people.

The variation of management assessments and coping with the pandemic has its sociological and value-system, layered dimensions. The existence of different attitudes, interests, affiliation, as well as of value-cultural system - culture, ideology, worldview, morality, influence the evaluation.

The confrontation between individuals, groups, and coalitions can have a positive reception in normal situations, including a consolidation effect, but during pandemic crises, it has criminally self-serving, destabilizing, and destructive results.