Ultimately, resilience to FIMI does not mean merely recognizing the next piece of fake news. It means building a society that knows how to pause before reacting, to ask a question before believing and to look for context before drawing a conclusion.
When we talk about foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI), the first things that come to mind are fake news, bots, coordinated campaigns and suspicious social media profiles. That is entirely understandable, because this is exactly where FIMI becomes visible to the public. But if we reduce the response to detecting and debunking individual pieces of false information, we are only looking at the surface of the problem.
FIMI does not work simply because someone has planted false content. It works because there is an audience that is tired, distrustful, polarised, emotionally affected or insufficiently equipped to recognise when a piece of content is not meant to inform them, but to make them angry, to frighten them or to steer them towards a predetermined conclusion. This is why media literacy is not a secondary educational topic, but part of broader societal resilience.
The European External Action Service frames the fight against foreign information manipulation and interference as part of the broader protection of information integrity and democratic processes. This means the question has long ceased to be only whether a piece of content is true or false. The real question is how such content affects trust, public debate, institutions and a society’s ability to make sound decisions under pressure.
The problem is not only the fake news story
For a long time, public debate revolved around whether a given piece of information was true or false. That matters, but it is not enough. FIMI often does not begin with a wholly invented story. Far more often it starts from a real event, a genuine concern or an already existing social tension. The manipulation comes afterwards: through the selection of facts, removal of context, emotional amplification or the presentation of one part of the story as the whole truth.
This is precisely why critical thinking has to go beyond the question “Is this true?”. It also has to ask: who is sharing this content, why now, who benefits from it, what is missing from the story, which emotions is it trying to trigger, and is it pushing me to react before I think.
In today’s information space, manipulation often does not aim to convince us straight away. Sometimes it only aims to make us cynical: to believe that everyone lies, that nothing can be verified, that institutions are always hiding something and that public debate is lost in advance. That is far harder to debunk than any single piece of fake news.
From media literacy to critical resilience
Media literacy is usually understood as the ability to identify a source, verify information or tell news apart from commentary. That is the foundation. But today we need a broader critical resilience: the ability to stay calm when content is designed to provoke anger, fear or ridicule; to recognise when humour is being used to normalise a particular narrative; and to understand that fast sharing is sometimes part of the problem.
The European Commission stresses that media literacy helps citizens navigate the complex modern media environment and make informed decisions. But that does not mean the entire responsibility should be shifted onto the individual citizen. No one can independently check dozens of sources, algorithms, profiles, potential manipulations and hidden intentions every single day. So the question is not only how to create a “smarter user”, but how to build an environment in which critical thinking becomes a normal habit rather than an exception.
UNESCO frames media and information literacy as a set of skills citizens need in order to engage critically with information and to cope with the challenges of today’s digital environment. The point matters: literacy is not merely a technical skill, it is a democratic competence.
Source: Pexels
Education as the first line of resilience
When we talk about resilience, we usually think of institutions, strategies and coordination mechanisms. But resilience begins much earlier: in classrooms, in families, in the media and in the everyday way people learn to ask questions.
Education should not produce citizens who can only spot a fake news story. It should produce citizens who can assess an argument, recognise manipulative emotion, understand context, delay their reaction and avoid replacing critical judgement with loyalty to one camp or another. In polarised societies, this is especially important.
This is why media literacy must not be confined to sporadic, one-off trainings or campaigns. It should be present in education, in public communication, in the work of institutions, in training for the administration, in vocational education and in youth programmes. The European Commission has also produced guidelines for teachers and educators on tackling disinformation and developing digital literacy, which shows that countering manipulation cannot be done through security instruments alone. It also has to enter education policy.
For Macedonia, this is particularly important. Small states do not have unlimited resources for large institutional systems, but they can invest in smart, practical and long-term educational approaches. This does not have to mean a new school subject. It can mean embedding critical reading, source analysis, digital security, public communication and the recognition of manipulative techniques into existing subjects and trainings.
The citizen is not the weak point, but part of the solution
It is often said that citizens “fall for” disinformation. That kind of language is problematic, because it creates the impression that the public is naive or to blame. It is more accurate to say that citizens operate in an information environment that is increasingly complex, faster and more aggressive. Algorithms reward content that provokes emotion. Political polarisation narrows the space for trust. Social media blur the line between journalism, opinion, propaganda and entertainment.
In such an environment, media literacy is not a cure-all, but it is an essential protection. It cannot fully prevent information operations, but it can reduce their effectiveness. If citizens know how to pause, verify, compare and resist impulsive sharing, manipulative content loses part of its power.
This also connects to domestic research and recommendations on the institutional response to FIMI in North Macedonia, which show that resilience cannot be built through a single institution or a single sector. What is needed is a broader approach in which institutions, the media, education, civil society and the public all have distinct but connected roles.
By way of illustration: the recent events with contaminated water in Gostivar showed how quickly a health and utilities crisis can acquire an information dimension as well. At a moment when large numbers of citizens were seeking medical help and the public expected clear answers, every delay, every conflicting statement or insufficiently explained institutional procedure created room for suspicion that “something is being hidden”. This example does not have to be treated as FIMI in order to matter for the topic. On the contrary, it shows that distrust, an information vacuum and weak crisis communication can become fertile ground for speculation, manipulation and further polarisation.
From campaigns to a culture of critical thinking
The biggest challenge is that media literacy is often treated as a campaign. A workshop is organised, recommendations are shared, a handbook is published, and then the topic disappears until the next crisis. But FIMI does not operate in campaigns. It is constant pressure on the information environment. Resilience therefore has to be constant too.
One of the earlier texts raised the question of how North Macedonia could build a national system against FIMI. But such a system will not be enough if resilience remains purely institutional. A culture of critical thinking is needed as well: teachers with the tools to discuss information manipulation; journalists and editors who do not feed polarisation; institutions that communicate clearly and in good time; civil society organisations working with local communities; universities that link the topic to security, democracy, psychology, communications and education.
Ultimately, resilience to FIMI does not mean merely recognising the next piece of fake news. It means building a society that knows how to pause before reacting, to ask a question before believing and to look for context before drawing a conclusion. In such a society, trust, critical thinking and education are not side topics, but the foundation of democratic stability and protection against manipulation.
FIMI relies on speed, while resilience requires a pause. FIMI uses emotion, while resilience requires reflection. FIMI uses distrust, while resilience requires institutions and citizens who know how to talk, verify and act on the basis of facts. That is why media literacy is not only education policy, but a democratic and security investment. Its goal is not to create citizens who will never be exposed to manipulation, because that is impossible. The goal is to create citizens who will recognise when someone is trying to exploit their insecurity, fear or anger, and who will know how to stop before they become part of someone else’s information operation.
