The Media Literacy and Disinformation Conference, organized by the European Union Delegation to T\u00fcrkiye in cooperation with the Department of Communication and Design, was held at C-Block Auditorium on February 7, with the participation of representatives from EU member states as well as more than 200 students from diverse academic establishments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The conference started with opening remarks by Rector Prof. K\u00fcr\u015fat Aydo\u011fan. In his speech, Prof. Aydo\u011fan emphasized the impact of the Internet revolution on the media, which has undergone a drastic transformation with the rise of social media as the primary source of news. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He underlined that this transformation has led to disinformation, manipulation and a concentration of media power rather than the prior expectation, which was the democratization of the media. Prof. Aydo\u011fan concluded that the sector will see more disturbance in the years to come before everything settles to a new state of equilibrium. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jurgis Vil\u010dinskas, deputy head of the European Union Delegation to T\u00fcrkiye, underlined in his speech that information integrity\u2014access to reliable, accurate and impartial information\u2014is fundamental for democracies, including T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s, as it empowers citizens to make informed decisions and exercise civic rights. Misinformation and disinformation are the most immediate risks to the world as they are being leveraged by foreign and domestic actors more easily, rapidly and cost-effectively to further widen societal divides. Pointing out that almost half of the world population, including T\u00fcrkiye, will take part in more than 60 elections in 2024, Vil\u010dinskas stressed the importance of strengthening defenses against the threats of information manipulation and disinformation. He argued that media and digital literacy is key part of the combat against disinformation and highlighted the ongoing EU efforts towards that end in T\u00fcrkiye, which include trainings, support to fact-checking initiatives and a range of podcasts and videos to raise awareness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his inspiring speech, Prof. Emrah Safa G\u00fcrkan (IR \u201903, HIST MA \u201906) underlined that disinformation is not a new thing and information has always been manipulated to fit political agendas throughout history. Prof. G\u00fcrkan argued that building hegemonic concepts through information distortion is more dangerous as it operates in a less visible yet more destructive way in the long term. Pointing out that there has never been \u201cobjective information,\u201d he concluded that hegemonic discourses strategically legitimize one set of knowledge and delegitimize others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The event included three panels: “Why Do We Need Media Literacy?” moderated by Assoc. Prof. Emel \u00d6zdora with the participation of Pelin Mavili, Director of Public Policy for Netflix T\u00fcrkiye, Middle East and North Africa, Emre \u0130lkan Sakl\u0131ca, Director of teyit.org, and journalist Co\u015fkun Aral; \u201cWhat Is the Role of Artificial Intelligence?\u201d moderated by Dr. Ay\u015fenur Dal with the participation of Yunus \u00c7a\u011flar, Director of do\u011frula.org, Prof. Erkan Saka of \u0130stanbul Bilgi University and Hakk\u0131 Alkan, founder of shiftdelete.net; and \u201cCan We Win the Fight?\u201d moderated by Dr. Lale \u015e\u0131vg\u0131n D\u00fcndar with the participation of \u00d6mer Faruk G\u00f6r\u00e7in, Anadolu Agency’s check line director, journalist Duygu G\u00fcven\u00e7 and Kaan Kayabal\u0131, CEO and founding partner of Onedio and Mediazone. Students who attended the conference were presented certificates of participation by the EU Delegation to T\u00fcrkiye. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Media Literacy and Disinformation Conference, organized by the European Union Delegation to T\u00fcrkiye in cooperation with the Department of Communication and Design, was held at C-Block Auditorium on February 7, with the participation of representatives from EU member states as well as more than 200 students from diverse academic[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6304,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,80,152,133],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6303"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6303"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6305,"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6303\/revisions\/6305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}