Archive for calls, 2024

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[Commlist] One day conference: Disinformation effects on minority and minoritized languages

Wed Jun 12 14:31:51 GMT 2024




DISINFORMATION EFFECTS ON MINORITY AND MINORITIZED LANGUAGES: Diagnosing the Problem, Identifying Solutions, Creating Knowledge Networks

When: July 1st, 2024
Where: UPF Barcelona School of Management Koiné Room (& online) Carrer de Balmes 132, 08008, Barcelona, Spain

This is a free event open to the public, but registration is required.  This will be a hybrid event, in-person and online participation is possible. Please indicate whether you would be participating in person or online during registration.

Register through this link: https://forms.gle/4iotYDmysuB7VULm7 <https://forms.gle/4iotYDmysuB7VULm7>

CONTEXT There is a growing body of evidence that mis and dis-information narratives that come both from foreign manipulation and interference campaigns and from local actors spread in minority and minoritized languages, or languages other than the main language spoken in any given country, languages that sometimes can be marginalized, persecuted, or even banned. In those cases, there is either less awareness and less capabilities to coordinate a response (or both) from authorities, international organizations, civil society, and tech companies. In the case of the later, it has been proven that content moderation in minority and minoritized languages receives less attention -sometimes inattention- and less resources, which leads to struggles in responding adequately to organized interference efforts on platforms when they are not distributed in majority languages.

 Amongst NATO members, all 31 have a majority language, and these include some of the most widely spoken languages in the world, including Portuguese, Spanish, English, and French, with these last two being the official languages of the organization. However, there are also myriad other languages. Just to cite a few examples: in Spain, there is also Euskera, Català or Galego; in France, Occitan, Breton, Basque, Corsican, Alsatian and others; Turkey also has Caucasian, Kurdish, Greek or Armenian; Denmark has Faroese or Greenlandic; Bulgaria has Romani or Russian; Estonia also has a large population that speaks Russian; the UK has Gaelic, Irish or Welsh. In countries with large communities of migrants, such as the United States, the common language is English and other native languages are present but large communities of migrants speak other languages that, while not strictly minority languages in a general sense, become minority or minoritized languages in the context of countries such as the United States. Examples include Spanish, Hindi or Mandarin, among others.

Main Objective and Approach
Through kind support from a NATO CO-SPONSORSHIP GRANT FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY PROJECTS and the support of the UPF BARCELONA SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT, this event seeks to explore the effects of interference efforts through coordinated disinformation campaigns and aims to determine the types of responses that institutions, the press and civil society organizations can articulate to counter information manipulation and interference operations in minority or minoritized languages.

Through a series of panels and work meetings this event wants to give voice to several stakeholders exploring the problem of mis and dis-information in minority and minoritized languages. The event aims to create spaces for interinstitutional and interorganizational dialogue so that different parties understand the problem from the other’s perspective and so that together, they can explore comprehensive solutions to help tackle the problem. Ultimately, this event aims to kickstart a network of institutional representatives, civil society organizations, the press, and academics that study issues around information manipulation and interference in minority and minoritized languages to foster more research around the topic and give a forum to exchange knowledge and experiences around issues related to mis and dis-information.

Format of the Sessions
The event will be built around a keynote and two panels focusing on specific topics related to mis and dis-information and minority and minoritized languages. Each of the panels will count with the participation of invited experts that will give context to the specific issues to be discussed during each one of them. Following the panels, all participants will be invited to join work sessions focusing, generally, on each of the topics established in panels which will frame the work sessions and trigger the discussion around each topic, which will be facilitated by a moderator.

During work sessions all participants will be invited to briefly share a bit about the work they do around studying and/or countering disinformation and/or working with minority languages and a facilitator will include subtopics for discussion to gather opinions, perspectives, and proposals for solutions. The work sessions will follow the Chatham house rule but minutes of what is discussed will be collected and distributed among the participants. If you work with disinformation and/or minority or minoritized languages and would like to share your project or work, please let us know during registration.

 Work-session participants: All attendees are welcome to participate. Participants must pre-register for the work sessions and participants willing to present a case study may indicate so, along with a brief description, upon registering.

Ways forward:  At the end of work sessions, moderators will summarize all issues addressed during the panel and work session discussion and present the key elements of the discussion as takeaways from the sessions.

Networking: During the event we will have coffee breaks and lunch as opportunities for networking, providing spaces for relaxed conversations and to encourage participants to establish connections that may lead to future work on the issues discussed during the event. Organizers will also announce upcoming initiatives such as opportunities for academic research publication, available materials as part of the NATO project and an upcoming event in the Fall of 2024.

AGENDA;
9:45am Registration and welcome

10:00am Opening keynote Carmen Romero, NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy

10:30am Panel 1 Institutional and organizational cooperation in response to mis and disinformation. Iván Monforte (Catalan Cybersecurity Agency) Bea Marin (EU External Action Service) Pilar Velasco (Demócrata.es) Enzo Panizio (EDMO/Pagella Politica)

12:00pm Coffee break

12:30pm Work Session 1 Effective tools to protect institutions and collectives against mis and disinformation Case study: Disinformation, factchecking and recent electoral processes. Catalina Gaete. Universidad Complutense de Madrid

1:30pm Lunch

3:30PM Panel 2 Multilingualism, minority and minoritized languages and disinformation. Toni Aira (UPF Barcelona School of Management) Òscar Escuder (Plataforma per la Llengua) Daniel Basteiro (Infolibre)

5:00PM Work Session 2 Inclusion of minority and minoritized languages in the fight against mis and disinformation Case study: TBC

6:00PM Closing remarks Presentation of upcoming initiatives linked to the project Rodrigo Cetina Presuel (Senior Lecturer and Associate Dean for Education and Academic Affairs, UPF Barcelona School of Management)

Contact information: Rodrigo Cetina Presuel, Senior Lecturer in Law and Public Policy, UPF Barcelona School of Management: (rodrigo.cetina /at/ bsm.upf.edu) <mailto:(rodrigo.cetina /at/ bsm.upf.edu)>


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