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In person icon ICTs and New Forms of Manipulation

Civil Society
Knowledge
Communication
S148
Michele Sorice
LUISS University
Donatella Selva
Università di Firenze

In person icon Building: (Building D) Faculty of Law, Administration & Economics , Floor: 2nd floor, Room: 2.02

Thursday 09:00 - 10:40 CEST (05/09/2019)

Abstract

In the last years, digital communication and social media have become central to many areas of social life. Political communication has found an important ally in the big data in order to profile the electorate; social media have become tools for legitimising social knowledge (including scientific and, sometimes, pseudo-scientific topics); some governments have been using social media to spread and legitimise their political positions; words like "disinformation" and "misinformation" have become very popular in the public debate, as well as expressions like "fake news" or complicated concepts like "post-truth". In the academic field, researches on the mechanisms of "news engagement" and potential manipulation carried out within the framework of ICTs have multiplied. In this scenario, the same concept of "manipulation" - which seemed confined to the first phase of the "communication research" – is back in the current scientific debate. The ICTs have been accused of favouring or in any case speeding up processes of manipulation of public opinion and, even, of influencing electoral results in a more or less decisive manner. It is no coincidence that the European Commission launched in 2018 a plan to contrast disinformation in order to defend democracy. The panel is aimed at exploring and discussing these issues in an international and comparative perspective.

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