Some Recent Videos on Polarisation, Misinformation, and Related Topics

The past few months have been quite busy with conferences and events, so here’s a quick update on what I’ve been up to recently. I’ll start here with a handful of videos from recent events – more on my recent and upcoming conference papers, journal articles, and book chapters in subsequent posts…

First, in May I was delighted to participate in a three-part series on “Future-Proofing the Public Sphere”, hosted by the Centre for Deliberative Democracy & Global Governance and the News & Media Research Centre at the University of Canberra, and the Digital Media Research Centre at QUT, where I work, which featured separate public talks from my fellow Australian Laureate Fellow John Dryzek from the University of Canberra and me and then put us in conversation in a final event. While we’re coming from different fields, our perspectives on current issues were remarkably aligned, so this was a very fruitful exchange, and I’m very thankful to my Canberra colleagues for initiating this series of events. In the original order of presentations, here are the videos of our talks.

I began the series on 2 May 2023 with my talk “The Filter in Our (?) Heads: Digital Media and Polarisation”, outlining the overall motivations for and agenda of my current Australian Laureate Fellowship project:

Axel Bruns. “The Filter in Our (?) Heads: Digital Media and Polarisation.” First presentation in the Future-Proofing the Public Sphere series, Brisbane / Canberra, 2 May 2023.

Up next on 9 May 2023 was John Dryzek’s talk “Deliberative Democracy for Diabolical Times”:

John Dryzek. “Deliberative Democracy for Diabolical Times.” Second presentation in the Future-Proofing the Public Sphere series, Canberra, 9 May 2023.

And we finished on 16 May 2023 with our public debate on “Future-Proofing the Public Sphere”, moderated at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy & Global Governance by Selen Ercan:

Axel Bruns and John Dryzek, moderated by Selen Ercan. “Future-Proofing the Public Sphere.” Podium discussion to conclude the Future-Proofing the Public Sphere series, Brisbane / Canberra, 2 May 2023.

But that’s not the only recent video: some time earlier I also spoke to the International Center for Journalists’ Empowering the Truth Summit, presenting our research on the dissemination of disinformation through social and online media as we’ve explored it in the context of COVID-19/5G conspiracy theories. Here is the video – my sincere thanks to the ICFJ for inviting me.

Axel Bruns, with Edward Hurcombe and Stephen Harrington. “The Anatomy of Virality: How COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories Spread across Social and Mainstream Media.” Keynote at the Empowering the Truth Summit, online, 23 Feb. 2023.

And that’s all for this update – more shortly!