Whether it is the war in Ukraine, Covid-19, or climate change -- crises seem to have become the norm in our globalized, digitally-connected world. This state of global uncertainty is accompanied by the widespread perception of an increasingly divided society. According to critical observers, this division manifests itself primarily in the ever-increasing polarization of public discourse.
The "Transatlantic Media Forum" was a one-day German-American gathering of fifteen renowned experts and journalists in New York City. Across three "Strategic Roundtables", the format allowed for in-depth deliberations wherein we discussed the media and techno-economic mechanisms that cause and perpetuate each of these crises - regardless of their respective content. How can we achieve resilience under these conditions?
The program included the following:
Opening remarks: Division everywhere? Christoph Bieber (Center for Advanced Internet Studies/Bochum, 2022 Thomas Mann Fellow)
Strategic Roundtable I: Information warfare and wartime journalism: Learnings and challenges
Inputs by: Sham Jaff and Anna Romandash
In addition to the war with weapons through the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the information war is also escalating. The context is new, but the challenges are not. Especially consumers of online media and social media platforms have always been an easy target for manipulation in the information war. These developments, problems and issues from long before the escalation of Russia’s war against Ukraine are manifesting themselves here with a new sharpness and consistency.
Strategic Roundtable II: Societal polarization – myth or reality? Empirical insights and practical challenges
Inputs by: Delia Baldassarri, Paulina Fröhlich and Alison (Ali) Goldsworthy
Modern society is becoming increasingly diverse, which could also result in a diversification of world views. These different views come together on new online media platforms, which - e.g. in Germany and the USA - have already overtaken the TV media. On the one hand, these online media allow a broader spectrum of opinions to be represented. On the other hand, empirical research indicates that contact with opposing views through social media can increase polarization.
Strategic Roundtable III: Taming the beasts? Platforms and algorithms for democracy
Introduction: Carla Hustedt (Director, Centre for Digital Society, Stiftung Mercator)
Inputs by: Ulises Ali Mejias and Alexander Sängerlaub
One of the main problems of social media is the spread of false information, hate speech and propaganda. These delicts are rarely punished, users can hide behind anonymity and often spread fake news much faster than real news. Separate platforms to combat hate speech on social media - such as the German "Hassmelden" - are increasingly overloaded and partly discontinue operations. Therefore, researchers are working on the use of artificial intelligence - via algorithms, voice recognition is supposed to identify hate speech.
“The path ahead”: Synthesis, implications, and close of part 1
Moderation roundtables: Svea Eckert (investigative journalist and author)
Sham Jaff was born in Kurdistan, Iraq, and is a journalist and political scientist based in Berlin. At the age of nine she emigrated with her family to Germany. After studying political science and economics, she travelled the world. In 2014, she started the English-language newsletter “what happened last week” (whlw), which explains the most important news and their global context. More than 14,000 people read it every Monday morning from more than 100 countries.
Anna Romandash is an award-winning journalist from Ukraine. She is interested in audio storytelling and long-reads as well as in working on feature stories and reportages from a protagonist perspective. Romandash was named Media Freedom Ambassador of Ukraine for her human rights and media work and was one of the winners of the European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed) literary contest for her reporting. When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Romandash started writing about the situation in her home country.
Delia Baldassarri is Professor in the Department of Sociology at New York University. She holds courtesy appointments in the Wilf Family Department of Politics and in the Management and Organizations Department at the Stern School of Business. Professor Baldassarri earned a B.A. and a Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Research from the University of Trento, Italy (2003; 2006), and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Columbia University (2007). Previously, she was an Assistant Professor and later Associate Professor at Princeton University.
Paulina Fröhlich has studied in Münster, Helsinki, Cologne and Jordan and is head of the Future of Democracy program area at the Progressives Zentrum. There she leads, among others, innovative dialogue formats with citizens, such as "Europe hears - a dialogue journey", and projects on the sovereign handling of anti-democratic populism in public space. Previously, she was a co-founder and spokesperson for the Kleiner Fünf initiative, which supports people in using “radical politeness” to act against right-wing populism.
Alison (Ali) Goldsworthy has been a political adviser and campaigner for more than twenty years. In 2017 she was a Sloan Fellow at Stanford, co-creating its first depolarisation course, and she has written for the Telegraph, Independent, New Statesman, The Times and Financial Times. Goldsworthy is also a well-known author, especially for the book “Poles Apart: Why People Turn Against Each Other, and How to Bring Them Together” (2021).
Ulises Ali Mejias, born in Mexico City, lived for the most time of his life so far in the United States. With research interests in digital media, political economy, and the philosophy of technology in general, he is a professor of Communication Studies and director of the Institute for Global Engagement at SUNY Oswego. Moreover, he is a co-founder of the Non-Aligned Technologies Movement and the network Tierra Común and serve on the Board of Directors of Humanities New York.
Alexander Sängerlaub is a German journalist, publicist and communications scientist. He is director of the nonprofit think tank futur eins at the Institute for Media and Communication Policy. He was editor-in-chief of the utopian political magazine Kater Demos, which was founded in 2014 and first appeared on newsstands in 2015. For the think tank Stiftung Neue Verantwortung", he has published several studies and papers on digital publics and their challenges, including disinformation, fake news, fact-checking, and news literacy in Germany.
The event was organized by 1014 and the Institute for Media and Communication Policy (IfM), in collaboration with the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium and with generous support from Stiftung Mercator.