Lana Ciboci Perša

One of the most concerning manifestations of artificial intelligence (AI) misuse is deepfake technology, which generates realistic but fabricated media content with the potential to deceive, manipulate, and erode public trust in digital communication. This threat is particularly acute for Generation Z, whose high exposure to synthetic media underscores the urgency of developing necessary critical skills. This study investigates the effectiveness of a short, targeted educational intervention designed to enhance deepfake recognition skills. Conducted in six secondary schools in Croatia, the intervention involved 118 students who participated in workshops focusing on the recognition, analysis, and critical evaluation of AI-generated manipulative content. A pre-test and post-test design was used to measure changes in students’ competencies related to AI and media literacy. Findings indicate that even a short onetime intervention can produce measurable improvements in students’ critical thinking, awareness of AI generated content, and ability to assess digital authenticity.

This study investigates the prevalence and characteristics of distinct roles in cyberbullying: victims, perpetrators, and victim-perpetrators in elementary schools. The random sample consisted of 1.662 students from elementary schools in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, and the research was conducted using the European Cyberbullying Intervention Project Questionnaire (ECIPQ). Participants were classified into cyberbullying roles based on their responses to ECIPQ and compared across a range of individual (gender, grade level, loneliness), digital (frequency and type of internet use), school-related (academic success, absenteeism), and family-related (parental relationship status) variables, as well as their tendency to report peer victimization. Based on the data, the most common role in cyberbullying was being non-involved, followed by victims, victim-perpetrators, and finally, perpetrators as the least common group. Findings revealed significant differences among the roles in nearly all examined domains. Victim-perpetrators reported the highest levels of loneliness, absenteeism, and internet use and were most likely to report experiences of victimization. Girls were more frequently classified as victims or victim-perpetrators, while students in higher grades showed greater involvement in cyberbullying. Reporting of peer victimization was significantly more common among students who experienced victimization. The role-based approach highlighted distinct patterns of emotional vulnerability and digital behavior, underscoring the need for early, targeted interventions focused on digital resilience, communication safety, and emotional support within elementary school environments.

Djeca se već u prvim godinama života susreću s medijskim sadržajima, pri čemu izloženost i vrijeme koje provode uz medije s odrastanjem sve više raste. Upravo je stoga važno medijsko obrazovanje koje djecu treba pripremiti na suživot s medijima, a u...

Today’s children are growing up and spending most of their free time with media, especially social networks, on which various lifestyles are imposed every day, including ideals of beauty that are often based on physical appearance and far from authentic images of the observed object. In this paper, it is shown how the topic of beauty is presented throughout the history of art, with a special focus on the presentation of beauty in theology. Additionally, the paper investigates how much the topic of beauty is treated within the Croatian formal education system, with a particular emphasis on the representation of beauty and to what extent children are prepared to critically evaluate the representation of beauty in different types of media, but also to reflect on the potential impact of such content on themselves. Research has shown that most such content is present in the subjects of Visual Culture, Visual Arts, Croatian Language and Informatics. The paper also presents such contents in the Catholic religious education curricula. In addition to imposed media ideals of beauty affecting childrens’ self-confidence, they are often the subject of peer violence, especially in the virtual world. Specifically, humiliation based on physical appearance is a common form of cyberbullying. To determine how physical appearance is used in such unacceptable behavior among children, all the posts that have arrived on UHO, the first online platform for the prevention of cyberbullying in Croatia, were analyzed. Research has shown that girls report such forms of abuse more often than boys, that cyberbullying based on appearance most often occurs inside closed groups or private messages rather than publicly on social networks, and that children rarely report to adults that they are the victims of such forms of violence.

Pitanje gubljenja granica između onoga što možemo nazvati novinarstvom i onoga što bi se u medijskome prostoru moglo nazvati „nenovinarstvom“ nije novo. Ono se opetovano postavljalo uz razne pojave koje su u pravilu predstavljale nemale profesionalne i etičke izazove za novinarsku struku – od utjecaja korporativnog novinarstva na snažan trend tabloidizacije, preko tzv. građanskoga ili participativnoga novinarstva, sve do današnjih dana u kojima se postavljaju pitanja tko je novinar i što je novinarstvo na Mreži koja počiva na ideji kreativnoga korisničkog sustvaralaštva u kojoj svatko može biti autor. Pitanje budućnosti novinara kao autora naročito se ozbiljno postavlja u vrijeme sve bržega razvoja različitih alata vođenih tehnologijom umjetne inteligencije (UI), poput chatbota, za koje neki predviđaju snažniju primjenu i u novinarstvu. U teorijskom dijelu rada stoga se promišlja identitet novinara i njegova uloga kao profesionalnog autora u suvremenom digitalnom medijskom okružju. Drugi dio rada, s ciljem analiziranja stavova stručnjaka o budućnosti novinarske struke, donosi rezultate istraživanja provedenog metodom polustrukturiranih dubinskih intervjua sa sveučilišnim profesorima koji na pet hrvatskih sveučilišta obrazuju buduće novinare i poučavaju ih novinarskim žanrovima i medijskom izvještavanju. Istražuju se stavovi sveučilišnih profesora o umjetnoj inteligenciji i može li ona zamijeniti novinara kao autora medijskih sadržaja, hoće li umjetna inteligencija dovesti do „smrti“ novinara kao autora te kako će se, sukladno razvoju umjetne inteligencije, ali i tehnologije općenito, prema njihovim procjenama razvijati novinarska struka u Hrvatskoj, osobito u kontekstu obrazovanja i razvoja novinara – autora.