Abstract:

In the dynamic modern society, the development of social relations, at the current moment, influences the contemporary communication models often resulting in altering or completely changing those models and creating a new information culture and system of values. Media as a main mechanism and essential tool for informing, communication, information exchange, generating ideas, connecting, and even creating friendships is placed on central position in this new system. In the recent years, technologies (especially ICT) have played a great part in revolutionizing the education and training process, pushing the widespread use of social networking and mobile devices as a sustainable trend in every sphere of the human life (including the learning process itself). The application of these technologies has created a new framework and vision for both learning as a process as well as the necessary information competence and skills to select and analyze various types and sources of information and different information resources. The widespread introduction of electronic media as a tool for informing has led to a negative trend i.e. the use of media as an instrument for manipulation or a tool for creating the so-called fake content, which puts a various number of challenges in the field of education and training and, in particular in the higher education sphere.

From an information point of view, manipulation relies on skills such as experience, ingenuity, additivity, speed, agility in information processing and dissemination and in the distribution of messages. University students are required to develop such skills and competences in order to protect themselves as individuals and as specialists from both: the influence of the social engineering techniques and the impact of manipulated information (fake content), as well as to provide them with a useful tool set to focus on the right approach to recognizing, assessing and choosing the electronic sources of information and define the information eligibility.

The lack of media objectivity and independence is equivalent to the lack of freedom and affects the security of every person. The right choice of electronic sources of information, especially when referring to lecture courses, of university students, is an important part in the learning process. Understanding the student's point of view on how to search for information sources or which information sources can be defined as credible is a quite important part of this study as well.

Research, analysis and the synthesis of a Informing science-based model for the formation and development of skills and competences in the use of information resources, related to the education and training process of university students, as well as real time testing in an university information environment, in particular in the education and training of specialists in the field of security, social communications, policies and practices in the University of Library Studies and Information Technologies – Sofia, Bulgaria, will provide a possibility for acquiring additional knowledge and practical skills.

Keywords:

Fake content, students, information, higher education.