Original title: The citizens are warning – watch out for your children in Madjari!
A fabricated media story, which manipulates with the parent instinct, attacked the Macedonian public. Created on Facebook, disseminated through a group of media outlets, without check of the facts and the sources, the speculation achieved a status of media sensation. The story began from unconfirmed Facebook profiles which were taken over by a group of media in an orchestrated manner.
According to the manner in which the news is served, one gets the impression that it is about well- orchestrated scheme of creating and spreading speculation that turns into media “truth”, taken over even by TV channels, which points out to a clear goal – causing unrest and spreading panic among the citizens.
Link to the original article: https://republika.mk/vesti/skopje/gragjanite-predupreduvaat-vnimavajte-na-vashite-deca-vo-madzari/
Other portals that have published the news:
http://www.mkdnews.com/2019/02/gragjanite-predupreduvaat-vnimavajte-na-vashite-deca/
Link to the archived original article here.
Who are the sources that have information that their neighborhood is the next target? Why the kidnappers would reveal who is their next target? In order to warn the citizens? Why would they warn the citizens if their original goal is to hurt them? How to analyze this news when it is based on invalid sources?
The media deliberately manipulate the public, calling upon the MoI to intervene, while omitting the official data which say that there are no reports of suspicious persons or events on the field.
The creation of such narrative on such sensitive topic has the aim to cause unrest among the citizens, to undermine the institutions and to make them appear incompetent, or even prone to crime, and by that to cause mistrust in the system. All of this is a manner in which fake news and disinformation influence citizens and their perception of the society.
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