The conference focused on exploring and discussing initiatives and projects that can contribute to making Media and Information Literacy (MIL) a tool for promoting global understanding and peace. It highlighted the need for media and journalism to dissolve prejudices and stereotypes that foster hatred and confrontation, and to advance mutual understanding between different countries and social groups by combating misinformation and hate speech. Special emphasis was also placed on the need to foster inter-religious dialogue as a necessary condition for global understanding.

The main outcome of the conference was the adoption of a declaration for global understanding that summarises the points that will be disseminated internationally during the summer months of this year and a concrete action programme that will be shaped throughout 2024.

The declaration is available on the official website of the International Media & Information Literacy Institute in English, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese.

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We want to help answer this question from a reflective, scientific point of view. A doctoral programme is in fact a collective platform for scientific research to answer certain questions. So in this summer school, what we seek to do is to sort out the questions that, from many perspectives, are being asked in relation to the object of the programme, which, as its title indicates, is Communication and journalism in the face of the challenge of disinformation. 

We have divided the sessions into two distinct parts. The mornings have been dedicated to conferences and debates with researchers and doctors who work, from different disciplines, on disinformation and its context, and how the media and journalistic work face them. We have also invited the directors of the department’s research groups. We have asked all of them to do two things. First, they should formulate the questions they consider essential on the general issue of disinformation, which will help us to understand what is relevant and to rule out the noise.  The second is to summarise the main lines of research on the issue.

The afternoons, the second part of the day, will be dedicated to the doctoral students of the programme, who will present their own doctoral research (or that of the research group they belong to), always in relation to the general theme of the School. To this end, we will organise round tables and colloquiums that will group together specific areas of research. There is also the possibility for those who wish to present a poster on their doctoral research work and are willing to discuss it with interested parties.

Who is participating in the first part, the morning sessions, and why?

All the names and CVs are listed in the programme. But I will refer specifically to what we have asked of each of them. The week will be opened by Dr. José María Mártínez Selva, professor of psychobiology at the University of Murcia. He has done a lot of work on the relationship between media and networks and personal psychology, with emphasis on factors such as stress, personal relationships, etc.  He has just published a book whose subject tackles the question of truth and lies from the very beginning: “La ciencia de la mentira“. We felt that, as the opening of the course, his multidisciplinary approach – ranging from neurology to sociology and communication theory – was very relevant. We expect him to place the issue of disinformation in a broad context and to provide us with a holistic perspective. 

We have then invited different professors and PhDs from the programme department – Luis Pérez, Santiago Tejedor, Michele Catanzaro, Cristina Pulido, Teresa Velázquez, Carmina Crusafón, Sally Samy, Samy Tayie, and others – to give us their different views on the issue. Thus, we will deal with polarisation and the media, the scientific method and journalism, the contributions of AI to journalism -with its problems and solutions-, EU policy in relation to disinformation, and so on. And we close the week with the contribution of another guest lecturer, Dr. Lluís Codina, who will help us to unravel the contributions that AI can make to our scientific work in the fight against disinformation. 

I think the programme is very interesting and quite comprehensive in its approach. We hope that it will serve, above all, to enrich the different doctoral research of the researchers in the programme. 

But is the course only for them?

No, the course is open to all researchers, scholars and professionals interested in the measurement of the capacities of our rooms. They are very welcome.

From your point of view, what are the challenges facing journalism and communication in the face of disinformation?

They are many, varied and affect different dimensions of our personal and social lives. 

To try to answer this question, it is necessary to contextualise the phenomenon very well. What we call disinformation today is an everlasting phenomenon in humanity. It has to do with knowledge and the distribution of power. Those who are powerful, govern or simply want to impose their designs on others have always known that to achieve their goals they had to impose a cognitive (or information) imbalance. They had to accumulate more and better knowledge than those on whom they seek to impose their will. And for this they have used, throughout history, many different strategies, but always oriented to this end: accumulating information exclusively, prohibiting the circulation of information, selectively informing, misinforming, concealing, manipulating, falsifying, etc. All these strategies correspond and adapt to the circumstances and technologies of the different eras and their information systems. In ours, it is clear that this unequal distribution of knowledge or information corresponds to (and feeds) inequalities of resources (subsistence, on the one hand, and of power, on the other), but also of social relations (social capital) and cultural relations (cultural capital).

And this unequal distribution takes place in the midst of what we have called the media tsunami (the great mediatisation) that has digitised – through large platforms – human relations. This is what we need to study. 

Personally and with my research team, we have dealt with many aspects of this problem. I have tried to describe and theorise how media technologies transform culture and society, affecting dimensions of our existence of which we had little awareness. I have done so in “La gran mediatización“. I tried to draw attention to the enormous and growing power of large platforms that were giving rise to two worrying phenomena: a) super-surveillance, a new system of mass control over people; and b) the concentration of political and technological power, what has later been called techno-feudalism. I believe that issues such as echo chambers, studies on post-truth and, in general, what is being studied on disinformation, respond to a double problem, derived from the unequal distribution of knowledge, on the one hand – which, as I have said, is an almost eternal problem – and, on the other hand, a very recent phenomenon that acts as a communicational infrastructure and as an accelerator of processes, which is the digital tsunami. 

But, more specifically, how does this unequal distribution and the media tsunami affect journalism?

Well, let’s be blunt, like a catastrophe that is no less serious for having been announced. Economic catastrophe. The journalistic media can no longer find a business model that allows them to survive, and so they disappear, lay off staff and close down. Or they transmute into infotainment (and fiction) systems that use the changing world as an occasion to launch discourses that, although they look like journalism, do not meet the standards. 

What standards are you referring to?

Those that have made journalism a reliable discourse about the world. And that can be summed up in a few sentences: the separation between fact and opinion. The acceptance that the world has an empirical reality that we can approach with a method similar to the scientific one; the need for objectivity or neutrality (which does not exclude a commitment to certain values) but which requires not lying, not misrepresenting, not hiding the facts; and, finally, an ethical commitment to honesty and credibility that is established with the public… All these statements or principles are what have made journalism a discourse conducive to understanding the world and support for democratic understanding when it comes to shaping the structures of power. It is this discourse that can build a democratic public sphere.

Well, what is now called journalism is either very weak and has lost its power of conviction or impact on public opinion, or it is a hybrid between the language of conquest, entertainment and the trivialisation of society.

If these standards are perverted by sensationalism, banality or manipulation, journalism will gradually disappear. 

But what can be done? 

I believe that current research helps us a lot. It helps us to critically analyse the situation and look for solutions. 

On the critical side, it is beginning to be recognised that the global, and completely unregulated, emergence of the Internet and social media is not helping to sustain democracies. On the contrary, it is eroding them. It encourages the circulation of falsehoods and the discourse of entertainment rather than scientific thought and the discourse of understanding. It saturates information and dulls meaning. And, above all, it reduces direct sociability and envelops us in bubbles where only echo chambers thrive. I think there is plenty of evidence for all this, although some effects can be debated and we still lack the knowledge to be completely certain about what is going on.

On the constructive and political (also professional) side, the stakes seem to be firm and move in three directions: a) the search for more plural and diverse communicational systems, which are free from economic and political influences, and which can safely face the question of economic survival; b) the regulation of social networks, of the Internet and of AI: for the first time, a certain consensus seems to be spreading on the need for ethical, professional and legal regulation of many aspects related to the media tsunami; and c) the transformation of the political system, especially the functioning of democracies: it seems that communication sciences and political sciences are looking for ways to make the democratic political sphere more transparent, more participatory, less demagogic and to ensure a good distribution of power and an effective resolution of conflicts and problems. 

Is there a solution in sight?

I am optimistic. There is no denying that we face great challenges and enormous obstacles. But research and public debate can help many – and in many ways – to find solutions. 

I think the scientific community is being very active in this regard. There is an explicit and more visible emphasis than ever before on the role of media literacy and journalism literacy. In this sense, we have moved from approaches that were especially related to education and training to involve a broader set of issues. This movement is being promoted by international organisations such as UNESCO, which has made Media and Information Literacy a central focus of its action in the field of information and freedom of expression. The same has happened with the United Nations, which has launched a broad programme of action against disinformation. The European Union has also put media literacy at the centre of the fight against disinformation. The World Economic Forum is also talking about the global risks of disinformation, and so on. In short, it is clear that the problem is a matter of concern.

The solutions and contributions that are being implemented in the academic field are very interesting and offer very valuable information. They range from observatories specialised in the fight against disinformation, EDMO, observatories and reports on pluralism, political initiatives such as those of the Council of Europe, professional and academic networks, such as the UNESCO Global Alliance, the UNESCO network of universities in favour of MIL, or the one being promoted by specific states such as the USA, DCN. 

Taken together, I believe solutions will be found. The problem is whether we will be in time to avoid catastrophes. 

What catastrophes are you referring to?

To the many that may ensue: terror of coexistence, civic conflicts, armed confrontations, erosion of democracy, perversion of the public sphere… All this has to do with the media, communication, journalism and information. And the problems at a time of geostrategic and technological change as important as the one we are living through create a lot of uncertainty.

Is social polarisation an aggravating factor?

A certain degree of confrontation and dialectical conflict is enriching for democracy, for reliable information and, above all, for finding solutions to conflicts. What happens is that this confrontation needs a stable, calm and explicit framework for argumentation and reasoning. All voices must be listened to calmly, exchanges must be equal, discourse must be rational, based on empirical data and respect the facts as much as the interlocutors. If this is the case, debate (even if polarised) is good. However, what we are experiencing nowadays is that debates are moving away from rationality and are based on emotional discourses in which identity, subjectivity and sentiment seem to prevail over any other consideration. Thus, victimhood, fear, emotional impulses, unbalanced by any calculation, are spreading. And even the perspective on reality is blurred: it is not science that is taken into account, but the will of those who want to see reality in their own way… If this happens within a media system where the circulation of information is not filtered or subjected to criticism, where any statement, true or false, spreads at the speed of light, then the problem is serious. Paul Vrilio said that we are moving in the dimensions of an atomic explosion, and that is how information works today. The risk is therefore great, and polarisation is the catalyst for fanaticism and the spread of statements that do not correspond to reality.

What about scientific discourse?

Paradoxically, the more and better science is practised, the more stereotypes, clichés and superstitions that seemed to have been overcome reappear in popular discourse (and that of certain elites). It is as if we were experiencing a certain involution. In the face of this, the media and journalism must make science and its methods more popular and spread them throughout all areas of society. Involve citizens in the decisions of scientists and in the consideration (and regulation of the impact of technology). This is important and a matter of survival.

When it comes to doctoral programmes such as Communication and Journalism, it is very important – and I give this as an example – that in the choice of the objects of study, in the implementation of methods and in the presentation of results, doctoral students get used to discussing not only with experts and researchers, but also with ordinary people, with those who live and suffer, sometimes, the effects of communication. I think this is a more participatory and creative way of doing science. And of communication research. 

To address some of the topics that will be presented at the Summer School 2024, what will happen with AI and journalism?

We don’t know. We are beginning to think of AI as both a boon and a risk. Let’s start with the risks. The minor risk is substitution, that AI will replace some of the tasks that journalists have been doing up to now. And the greater risk is that they will supplant them (which is a covert and disguised substitution). If the supplanting happens, journalism is ruined, it will be nothing, just a machine generation of discourse.

This is what AI research must shed light on: where are we going? where do we want to go? where should we go? and how do we get to the destinations we set out for?

At the moment the research we can do is very weak. We do not have the resources that the big technology platforms are mobilising. We cannot do research either on them (hardly) or with them (hardly at all). So we are disarmed, at risk. I think this is one of the big problems we need to solve soon. Otherwise the drift of technology and the application of AI in journalism and media will be authoritarian. 

With all that you says, it’s a bit scary about the future world.

As researchers we should be alert, but not afraid. The siege of falsehood and superstition has been constant in humanity, as has the siege of abusive power and inequality. Today we have methods to combat these evils. We have new risks, but more collective intelligence to deal with them. We have to live with falsehood, hypocrisy and lies, which are inherent to social life. But the struggle for truth, for respect and reliability is our best antidote. 

We can live with lies without giving up the fight against them. Journalism and science can be at the forefront of this movement, and research can accompany it with all its knowledge and intelligence.

The post Pérez Tornero: “The key is how to live with disinformation while fighting against it” | Interview on the eve of the Doctoral Summer School 2024 (UAB) appeared first on MIL Institute.

The event, which will take place from 2 to 4 October 2024 at the Universitat Jaume I in Castellón de la Plana, will feature presentations by several leading figures in the fields of education, journalism and communication, who will explore the latest trends and strategies in the field of media literacy.

In this way, the event will be a forum for ideas and debates, with the participation, among other experts, of Manuel Pinto, Luciano di Mele, Félix Ortega, Carmen Marta, Agustín García Matilla, Ignacio Aguaded and José Manuel Pérez Tornero (professor of journalism at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and coordinator of the UNESCO Media and Information Literacy and Intercultural Dialogue Programme).

The conference will seek to deepen the understanding of how media literacy can empower citizens in an increasingly digitised society and will address issues such as the role of media education in fostering critical and participatory citizenship or the impact of emerging technologies on the practice and teaching of media literacy, as well as presenting examples of innovative experiences and case studies in the implementation of media literacy programmes.

Projects or initiatives such as CrAL, Omedialiteracy or IVERES, which have been promoted by the Gabinete de Comunicación y Educación of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) with the aim of empowering the journalistic community and the local population in the use of tools for the development of a critical spirit and the fight against disinformation.

The Gabinete de Comunicación y de Educación is a consolidated group specialised in scientific research and dissemination, which belongs to the Department of Journalism and Communication Sciences of the UAB. Recognised by AGAUR (Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca) of the Generalitat de Catalunya as a Consolidated Research Group on the basis of its trajectory, projection and development, it develops projects and research in the field of convergence between communication and education. Since its creation, it has developed initiatives aimed at integrating, with awareness and freedom, communication technologies in the so-called global or knowledge society. Under the direction of Santiago Tejedor, the Gabinete organises different Master’s Degrees, such as the Master’s Degree in Travel Journalism (on-site and online), the Master’s Degree in Communication and Education, the Master’s Degree in Environmental Communication and the Master’s Degree in Political and Electoral Communication Management. The group has a wide and varied collection of publications, in the form of scientific articles, books and book chapters, and other works, which is constantly being renewed. It also has a laboratory for teaching innovation projects, transfer and new formats that are conceived and developed from a perspective based on creativity and multidisciplinary work. Every year, the Gabinete organises an academic expedition that travels around the world with students from different universities and degrees. This is the Tahina-Can Expedition, which has been awarded as the best educational project in Spain. It also has the portal Tu Aventura, the educational platform InfoEDU and the newsgames and science project Reporter@s de la Ciencia.

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This first seminar is also part of the work of the UNESCO MILID network to develop a Global MIL Research Agenda (MIL Research Agenda) 2024-2028. This agenda is an initiative of the “UNITWIN Cooperation Programme on Media and Information Literacy and Intercultural Dialogue” of UNESCO, together with the MIL Alliance and the many UNESCO Chairs, as well as entities and projects working in the sector in relation to the Organization; and its mission is to become a vector that facilitates the connection between the field of research and the field of social and political action in media literacy. In this sense, it is emerging as a conceptual framework of reference that will allow researchers, public policy makers and other actors in the sector to share experiences and knowledge and to make concrete efforts.

The UAB’s Gabinete de Comunicación y Educación is also working along the same lines, and many of its initiatives aim to offer resources for raising awareness and promoting media literacy in a wide variety of journalistic and non-journalistic scenarios. Initiatives such as the project “CrAL – Creative Audiovisual Lab for the promotion of critical thinking and media literacy”, which, together with five European institutions, strives to provide the educational community with the necessary tools to combat insufficient media literacy, cultivate students’ critical thinking and help them understand the responsibility and power of their voice.

The initial meeting in Bellaterra served, then, to elaborate this first research agenda for Spain and its results will contribute to the elaboration of the subsequent global agenda. The ten research challenges identified by the experts during the meeting were the following:

• The impact of the media environment on children and youth: benefits, risks and MIL policies.

• MFA and public space, the future of democracy.

• Equality, equity and social inclusion in the new media environment.

• MIL information and quality content.

• Education, training and MIL policies.

• The impact of AI.

• The need to update the conceptual framework of MIL.

• MIL as a driver of a new intercultural dialogue.

• Governance and transparency and the development of media technology.

• The need to develop a new system for transferring MIL research to society.

In this sense, José Manuel Pérez Tornero, Professor of Journalism and Director of the UNESCO Chair in Media and Information Literacy and Quality Journalism, urged to continue working to ‘refound’ the framework of media and information literacy. “The last decades have seen decisive changes in the media environment that we have not yet been able to assimilate: the digital transformation, the irruption of the Internet and the web, artificial intelligence, the successive crises of capitalism, climate change, the transformation of production, etc. Therefore, the object of research, theoretical approaches, concepts and working methods have to be renewed and adapted to the challenges of this new situation. If we work together, we will succeed. The Global MIL Research Agenda is the best way to achieve this”, said Tornero.

José Miguel Túñez López, professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela, highlighted the transdisciplinary nature of the meeting, as well as the need to include the entire population in the objectives of the proposed initiatives: “MIL is a necessity in all social strata and needs a progressive knowledge that raises it from a necessity to a preferential focus of action in the design and execution of public policies that allow the projection of more egalitarian societies and help to re-understand the emerging values that support the concept of public value”.

Dr. Carmen Marta Lazo, Professor of Journalism and Director of the Predepartmental Unit of Journalism and Audiovisual Communication and Advertising at the University of Zaragoza, highlighted the growing awareness of the need for media literacy and pointed to the incursion of artificial intelligence, social inequalities and the consequences for mental health as the main challenges to be faced in the coming years. “The digital divide in different typologies (age, territorial and social) makes it difficult for all vulnerable groups to participate in e-administration and in the e-administration and digital culture in a solvent way, which has repercussions on social inequalities”, said Lazo.

Juan Francisco Jiménez Jacinto, Director of the Department of Communication at the Universitat Abad Oliba CEU, insisted on the need for the Academy to serve as a reference and provide solutions to achieve the objectives of the MIL Agenda. “The main contributions should come from research that defines the magnitude of the challenges we face, presenting an accurate map of the reality in order to address targeted solutions’ and added ‘Dissemination is key in the visibility of the advances that the Academy determines so that there is an effective transfer of knowledge to citizens”.

Santiago Tejedor, director of the Gabinete de Comunicación y Educación of the UAB, agreed on the importance of forging an alliance between universities, researchers and teachers from all over Spain to “promote work to redefine the strategies that address media literacy”. “The new contexts and new technological developments, led by AI, demand networking, collaboration, horizontal and multidisciplinary work. Added to this is the importance of taking advantage of all the work carried out in previous decades, which is of great value, but which requires new reflections”, added Tejedor at the end of his speech.

In addition to the aforementioned professionals, the meeting was attended by: Andrés Armas from Alfa-Media, Javier Marzal from the University Jaume I of Castellón, Dr. Félix Ortega from the University of Salamanca, Almudena Barrientos from the Complutense University of Madrid, Bella Palomo from the University of Málaga, Simón Peña, Amor Pérez, Rosa Franquet, Juan José Perona, Evaristo González and the researchers of the Gabinete Cristina Pulido and Besanya Santiago.

After the success of this first meeting, the Gabinete de Comunicación y Educación, through its projects and initiatives, and the UNESCO MILID Unitwin Cooperation Programme, together with teachers, communicators and journalists from different Spanish organisations, will continue working to strengthen the establishment of media literacy policies and initiatives that help to develop the critical capacity of citizens and respect for democratic values.

The Gabinete de Comunicación y de Educación is a consolidated group specialised in scientific research and dissemination, which belongs to the Department of Journalism and Communication Sciences of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). Recognised by AGAUR(Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca) of the Generalitat de Catalunya as a Consolidated Research Group on the basis of its trajectory, projection and development, it develops projects and research in the field of convergence between communication and education. Since its creation, it has developed initiatives aimed at integrating, with awareness and freedom, communication technologies in the so-called global or knowledge society. Under the direction of Santiago Tejedor, the Gabinete organises different Master’s Degrees, such as the Master’s Degree in Travel Journalism (on-site and online), the Master’s Degree in Communication and Education, the Master’s Degree in Environmental Communication and the Master’s Degree in Political and Electoral Communication Management. The group has a wide and varied collection of publications, in the form of scientific articles, books and book chapters, and other works, which is constantly being renewed. It also has a laboratory for teaching innovation projects, transfer and new formats that are conceived and developed from a perspective based on creativity and multidisciplinary work.

The Gabinete organises every year an academic expedition that travels around the world with students from different universities and careers. This is the Tahina-Can Expedition, which has been awarded as the best educational project in Spain. It also has the portal Tu Aventura, the educational platform InfoEDU and the newsgames and science project Reporter@s de la Ciencia.

The post CrAL Project and UNESCO MILID Unitwin Cooperation Program present the MIL Research Agenda 2024-2028 | Gabinete de Comunicación y Educación (UAB) appeared first on MIL Institute.

Over the next few years, Pérez Tornero will be responsible for coordinating and energising the work aimed at meeting UNESCO’s objectives in this area and within the medium-term strategy (2029), especially through the contributions of the research groups and universities with which UNESCO maintains relations around the world.

These objectives include the defence and promotion of freedom of expression and the right to information; the search for inclusion in the processes of digital transformation through equity in the acquisition of skills; the development of ethical standards, standards of conduct and self-regulatory codes for public media and social networks; and the fight against disinformation and fake news that jeopardise human rights and democracy.

Special emphasis will be placed on artificial intelligence and its new applications in various fields.

The main task of the different teams coordinated by Dr. Pérez Tornero will be: the promotion of public policies for media and digital literacy; the socio-cultural, ethical and political challenge represented by the emergence of deep artificial intelligence; and quality journalism. All of this, within the framework of intercultural understanding and always with the goal of achieving peace.

UNESCO will approve the research agenda on these topics during the Global MIL Week to be held in October 2023 in Amman, Jordan. And the launch of the main developments will be presented in March 2024 in Alexandria, Egypt, on the occasion of the conference on the theme of Global Understanding.

In leading the MILID programme, Dr Pérez Tornero will have three focal points: UNESCO Paris; Lagos (Nigeria) and Sao Paulo (Brazil). There, he will be supported by specialists Dr. Alton Grizzle, Dr. Suraj Ojnufilesi and Dr. Esther Hamburger.

Dr. Pérez Tornero, who currently directs the UNESCO Chair at the UAB, has been working with the United Nations agency on audiovisual public service and media literacy for more than 30 years.

He has carried out missions in countries such as Thailand, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, France, Turkey, Qatar, Morocco, Mexico, Peru, Dominican Republic, India, among others. He has also been part of the EU expert group on media literacy. He has led European initiatives and research aimed at guiding European legislation on media literacy and promoting digital and media literacy in different countries.  Recently, he has been particularly active on issues related to artificial intelligence and disinformation. In these fields, he has worked intensively in relation to countries such as Portugal, Italy, Baltic countries, Finland, Sweden, Belgium, France and the United Kingdom, etc.

In his media responsibilities, Dr. Pérez Tornero has been president of RTVE (a position for which he was elected by more than two thirds of the parliament). In that role, he made progress in the consolidation of the workforce, technological innovation, internationalisation and cultural production. He has also been a board member of the EBU, and president of COPEAM (Rome), board member of the Association of Cultural and Educational Televisions of Ibero-America (Mexico), and vice-president of the Association of Discovery Televisions (Paris).

Dr. Pérez Tornero’s lines of research have evolved from semiotics and discourse criticism, political economy and communication and education, to artificial intelligence, audiovisual public space and media literacy.  On all these topics he has published more than 100 scientific articles in several languages.

He is the author of more than thirty books, including: La gran mediatización, Media literacy and new Humanism, Tribus urbanas, La televisión educativa, Comunicación y educación en la sociedad de la información, La seducción de la opulencia, among others, etc.

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The students will have the opportunity to get to know the surroundings of Barcelona and interact with students from the Catalan university, while strengthening their skills in the field of multimedia content production.

The UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs programme, the Global Alliance for Media and Information Literacy Partnerships (UNESCO MIL Alliance) and the UAB Gabinete de Comunicación y Educación are organising this academic exchange with the aim of fostering intercultural dialogue between Egyptian and Barcelona students and promoting spaces for the development of critical thinking, creativity and cooperation.

The Gabinete de Comunicación y de Educación is a consolidated group specialised in scientific research and dissemination, which belongs to the Department of Journalism and Communication Sciences of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). Recognised by AGAUR(Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca) of the Generalitat de Catalunya as a Consolidated Research Group on the basis of its trajectory, projection and development, it develops projects and research in the field of convergence between communication and education. Since its creation, it has developed initiatives aimed at integrating, with awareness and freedom, communication technologies in the so-called global or knowledge society. Under the direction of Santiago Tejedor, the Gabinete organises different Master’s Degrees, such as the Master’s Degree in Travel Journalism (on-site and online), the Master’s Degree in Communication and Education, the Master’s Degree in Environmental Communication and the Master’s Degree in Political and Electoral Communication Management. The group has a wide and varied collection of publications, in the form of scientific articles, books and book chapters, and other works, which is constantly being renewed. It also has a laboratory for teaching innovation projects, transfer and new formats that are conceived and developed from a perspective based on creativity and multidisciplinary work.

The Gabinete organises every year an academic expedition that travels around the world with students from different universities and careers. This is the Tahina-Can Expedition, which has been awarded as the best educational project in Spain. It also has the portal Tu Aventura, the educational platform InfoEDU and the newsgames and science project Reporter@s de la Ciencia.

The post MILID Autumn School 2023 | Unitwin-UNESCO Chairs, UNESCO MIL Alliance & Gabinete de Comunicación y Educación (UAB) appeared first on MIL Institute.

The first volume – published for now in digital format and which will appear in print in a fortnight’s time – is subtitled: El tsunami due expropriation nostras vidas, el confinamiento digital a la sociedad de la distancia (The tsunami that expropriates our lives, from digital confinement to the distance society) and deals with the impact of digitalisation on identities and personal relationships.

Pérez Tornero defends the hypothesis that behind this confinement – which, moreover, has coincided with and exacerbated the sanitary confinement of COVID-19 – we are moving towards a society of distance, characterised by the constant increase in the separations between people and groups, which threatens to expropriate control of our lives.

The second volume, due to be published by the end of the year, addresses the effects of mass mediatisation on the global warming of the public sphere. It analyses the consequences of the new social ecosystem on public life – politics, journalism, education. What is revealed in this second part is the impossibility of sustaining the current democracy without a profound reform of the regulation of media and platforms. It also points out that a new authoritarian and media populism could spread like a drop of oil across the planet.

In short, an absolutely essential book to become aware of the media reality of our times that threatens to expropriate our lives and lead to an authoritarian media populism.

Buy the book here.

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