Online event · Dec 10 2021, 3pm CET

Disinformation is a Virus · Fake News & the Pandemic

Disruptive Fridays #27

With: Ketevan Khutsisvili, Ivan Sigal, Tina Lee, Maya Talakhadze
Live at https://www.disruptionlab.org/fridays

For the final event of the exchange project with The Regional Democratic Hub Caucasus, FACING DISINFORMATION: Media Diversity from Georgia to Germany (https://www.disruptionlab.org/facing-disinformation) Disruption Network Lab organises a conversation on the topics of media disinformation during coronavirus in Georgia, Germany and internationally.

Ketevan Khutsishvili (Deputy Editor at Myth Detector, Media Development Foundation in Tbilisi http://www.mdfgeorgia.ge/eng/home) will be in conversation with Ivan Sigal (Global Voices Executive Director https://globalvoices.org) and Tina Lee (Editor-in-chief of Unbias the News https://unbiasthenews.org, and head of publications at cross-border journalism network Hostwriter).The panel is moderated by Maya Talakhadze (Co-Founder of Regional Democratic Hub – Caucasus).

The event is curated by Tatiana Bazzichelli (Founder & Director, Disruption Network Lab).

This conversation aims to discuss the development of disinformation and fake news in Georgia and internationally, taking into consideration the COVID-19 threat. The creation of hate news, fake news and false facts in the media landscape in relation to the pandemic is analysed to discuss methodologies of encouraging and supporting media pluralism. 

Ketevan Khutsishvili analyses how fake news is spread in Georgia on the roots of COVID-19 and on vaccinations; the engagement of Russian sources in the COVID-19 disinformation; disinformation on Lugar laboratory and the case of generating fake COVID passports.

Ivan Sigal introduces the activity of The Civic Media Observatory (https://globalvoices.org/special/observatory), a method to investigate and decode how people understand information and create knowledge in complex and seemingly chaotic media ecosystems. Over the last two years, the Civic Media Observatory has explored complexity in media ecosystems in two dozens countries, on topics ranging from elections to COVID-19, from protest movements to civil wars, from China's soft power influence around the world, to disinformation tactics by authoritarians. Current active projects for 2021 and early 2022 include observatories about Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Mali, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Russia and Turkey.

Tina Lee presents the work of Unbias the News (https://unbiasthenews.org), a cross-border newsroom working towards a more equitable and inclusive world of journalism, and discusses how lack of diversity and local voices in the media assists the spread of disinformation, using examples from the German context and from Nigeria’s vaccine hesitancy. She will argue that missing voices in the media create information gaps that can be filled by distortion and disinformation, and that the solution is a more inclusive media landscape. 

The conversation aims to connect the experience in South Caucasus region with the current analysis of media disinformation and hate speech developed by journalists, researchers and media experts in Germany and internationally, to provide literacy and awareness in complex public health issues.

Speakers 

Ketevan Khutsishvili (Deputy Editor at Myth Detector, Media Development Foundation, GE)

Ketevan Khutsishvili is a fact-checker and journalist, Deputy Editor at Myth Detector, Media Development Foundation in Tbilisi, Georgia. Myth Detector is Media Development Foundation’s (MDF) project aimed at debunking fake news and studying propaganda methods and strategies revealed in Georgian language media.Since November 2019, Myth Detector is a verified signature of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) of the Poynter Institute, working alongside with 100 fact-checkers from more than 70 countries around the world and member of #CoronaVirusFacts Alliance and WhatsApp Coronavirus Information Hub. 

Ivan Sigal (Global Voices Executive Director, US)

Ivan Sigal is Global Voices’ executive director since the middle of 2008. Prior to working with GV, he spent 10 years working in media development in the former Soviet Union and Asia, supporting and training journalists and working on media co-productions. He is also a photographer, and have worked and travelled in 80 countries. In 2012 he published White Road, a chronicle of travel in Central Asia. He is currently also a Fellow in Digital Studies at the U.S. Library of Congress, and a former fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, where he studied digital storytelling and online communities. He speaks Russian, manage in German, have forgotten Slovak and Czech, and can make it home in Thai.

Tina Lee (Editor-in-chief of Unbias the News, Head of Publications at Hostwriter)

Tina Lee is writer, editor and researcher focused on migration, media and the far-right. She is head of publications at Hostwriter, an award-winning network that helps journalists easily connect across borders. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Unbiasthenews.org, a cross-border feminist newsroom based in Berlin, and was the editor of the book Unbias the News: Why Diversity Matters for Journalism, published by Hostwriter and Correctiv in 2019.

Maya Talakhadze (Co-founder, Regional Democratic Hub – Caucasus, GE)

Maya Talakhadze is Co-Founder of Regional Democratic Hub - Caucasus. With a legal background, Maya has many years’ experience in working public, private and civil society organizations in different fields in Georgia, in the US and in the Netherlands. She has worked on media environment and development in Georgia. For several years, she also worked as a researcher at Institute for Development of Freedom of Information. Experienced with project management, within the company she is also responsible for organizational development and relation to donors and development partners.

The project ‘Facing Disinformation’ is undertaken with the financial support of the German Federal Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt) as part of the Expanding Cooperation with Civil Society in the Eastern Partnership Countries and Russia (Eastern Partnership Programme).