Meeting agenda
The second GFMD IMPACT meeting bringing together donors, practitioners and academics, which took place on June 17th 2021, focused on disinformation.
AGENDA
Journalism support and media development in the context of mis/disinformation
Date: 17th June 2021
Time: 15:00-17:00 CET / 09:00-11:00 ET
Register for the event using this link https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82095961523
Co-convened by
Aim
To provide donors, practitioners and academia insights and knowledge to assist the sector in better planning, designing, implementing and measuring the impact of mis/disinformation programmes by discussing:
Approaches and methodologies used in media assistance programmes to tackle mis/disinformation
What has been successful in different environments, where there are still challenges
What forms of evidence and research still need to be developed
How to better collect, share and use data and evidence from current programmes that can influence policy priorities as well as implementation strategies.
Rules
Keynote presentations and case studies presented in the main part of the meeting are on the record.
The breakout groups will take place using the Chatham House rule:
When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.
The meeting will be recorded for the purposes of record-keeping and to enable accurate reporting. The video will never be shared or published.
These meetings are not for the solicitation of funding.
WELCOME (15:00-15:15)
Owais Aslam Ali, Secretary-General of Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF), and the Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD) Steering Committee Member
Joshua Machleder, Senior Media and Internet Freedom Advisor, USAID│Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights and Governance
Addressing Mis/Disinformation in journalism support and media assistance programmes (15.15-15.35)
Tom Law, Media Policy Advisor, Global Forum for Media Development, will give a review of relevant reports, evidence and literature related to recent programmes and initiatives.
Kalina Bontcheva, a senior researcher in the Natural Language Processing Group at the University of Sheffield, has prepared the following presentation from the disinformation typology of responses section of Balancing Act: Countering Digital Disinformation While Respecting Freedom of Expression (2020).
A literature review of resources related to how media development and wider policy initiatives can address disinformation is available here.
KEYNOTE PRESENTATION (15:35-16:00)
The Challenges of Evaluating Countering Disinformation Programs: A Working Paper
Susan Abbott, consultant, co-chair of the Media Sector Development Working Group of The International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR)
Katerina Tsetsura, Ph.D., Gaylord Family Professor of Strategic Communication, University of Oklahoma, Independent Consultant, Research, Measurement, Monitoring, and Evaluation
You can download the draft work paper from the link below:
PLEASE NOTE: This a draft creating for discussion and comment purposes only.
BREAKOUT GROUPS (16:00-16.40)
A series of case studies and presentations of research and policy papers were prepared for participants to watch in preparation for the meeting to allow for more discussion in the meeting itself.
Each group was tasked with responding to the following questions:
Which responses to disinformation are effective in which circumstances? And why? Why have some responses been more effective than others?
What are your main challenges when working on responses to disinformation? How can they be overcome?
What are your recommendations for the media development and journalism support community (donors, funders, implementers, practitioners)? What should we do next? And how should we do it? Research? Evidence sharing? Data gathering?
BREAKOUT GROUP 1 - Content
Supporting journalism, counter-narratives, reporting on misinformation.
Chair: Mira Milosevic, Executive Director, Global Forum for Media Development
Nicolas Boissez presents the main findings from Fondation Hirondelle's (May 2021) policy paper, "Sticking to the Facts, Building Trust: our Cure for Disinformation".
Jaime Abello Banfi presents the highlights from Fundación Gabo's (May 2021) digital book: “Journalism in the face of misinformation”.
BREAKOUT GROUP 2 - Production processes
Newsroom and production processes to address disinformation - Fact-checking, moderation, content curation, ethical standards.
Chair: Roukaya Kasenally, CEO, African Media Initiative and Associate Professor University of Mauritius
Marius Dragomir presents the highlights from the Center for Media Data and Society’s (March 2021) research, “What keeps fact-checking organizations up and night”.
Karolina Luczak-Santana and Mikias Sebsibe talk about how DW Akademie used human-centred design to kick off a fact-checking project in Ethiopia.
BREAKOUT GROUP 3 - Audiences
Media and information literacy and newsroom literacy.
Chair: Snjezana Milivojevic, Ph.D.Faculty of Political Science, University of Belgrade
Dennis Reineck talks about DW Akademie’s (Oct 2020) Index of Media and Information Literacy in six African countries. For background on the methodology, approach and guiding principles see:
Recommended viewing for all breakout groups: Content, production and audiences
As this policy paper from ARIJ and this research from Media Matters for Democracy addresses the topics of all breakout groups, we recommend that all participants watch these presentations (as well as read the paper and research.)
Saja Mortada presents the highlights from ARIJ’s (Dec. 2020) policy paper, “Combating Disinformation in the Arab World - The COVID-19 pandemic”.
This research by Media Matters for Democracy - Pakistan -- "Disorder in the newsroom - The media’s perceptions and response to the infodemic" -- includes a survey of 546 journalists along with in-depth interviews of 10 senior reporters and editors in national and international newsrooms based in Pakistan.
Sonia Whitehead presents an analysis of BBC Media Action’s work responding to disinformation around COVID-19.
More resources
For more resources see the literature review prepared for this meeting:
Choose your breakout group
Please fill out this single question form to indicate which group you would like to be allocated to: https://forms.gle/7zEwHVyvGG7ND7ed7
If you don’t make a selection, note that we will assign you to one of the groups.
Reporting from the groups and conclusions (16.40-17:00)
Follow-up
After the meeting, GFMD will share a report of the presentations, keynote and discussions in the breakout group. This will include proposals for future research, collaboration, learning and information sharing.
REPORT FROM OUR PREVIOUS EVENT: Theories of change and impact measurement
The first GFMD IMPACT meeting, held on March 15th 2021, focused on theories of change and impact measurement.
pageTheories of change & impact measurement (March '21)Last updated
