The 72nd Annual ICA Conference theme One World, One Network? have been held on Paris from May 26th to 30th, 2022. Scholars from all over the world joined a major event to discuss about current and future trends of research on communication. In addition to the official conference, a high number of pre-conferences complemented the event adding topics of discussions and investigation to the official programme.
DEN Institute has attended several pre-conferences. In particular, the team has participated to those sessions dedicated to disinformation to disseminate the MediaFutures project.
Particularly interesting has been the session “What Comes After Disinformation Studies?” hosted by SciencePo at the Media Lab. Main point of discussion has been “the relationship between disinformation, technology, and global democratic backsliding, white supremacy, inequalities, nationalisms, and the rise of authoritarianism globally”. In another sessions, entitled “From International News Flows to Platformization of Journalism: Global News Diversity in Perspective”. Several presentations discussed about the role of platforms in spreading news and the effects on news pluralism.
From the sessions, it emerges clearly the need for further discussions on the topic. Disinformation is still a very complex and wide phenomenon. Only approaching the topic with a broad range of competences and background it will become possible to understand its impacts and define how to regulate it. Interdisciplinary discussions are needed to combine different approaches and point of views. Political science, sociology, data scientists, and many others, are all expertise needed to push a deep and comprehensive discussion.
The high level of interdisciplinarity reached by MediaFutures can really provide an example of collaboration and exchange that could be beneficial for researchers working on disinformation both to foster theoretical discussions and for the development of technology tools that could help in reducing the spread of false and dangerous information.