The Open Forum is organized by the Knowledge Exchange Lab of the Cluster of Excellence “Contestations of the Liberal Script (SCRIPTS)” and researchers from the WZB. Speakers from the following institutions are also involved:

• Brandenburg University of Technology (BTU) Cottbus-Senftenberg
• Berlin Social Science Center (WZB)
• Der Goldene Aluhut gUG
• JFF – Institute for Media Research and Media Education, Berlin Office

Programme

03 pm

Introduction of the event by the team of the Mall Anders and the Knowledge Exchange Lab of SCRIPTS.

03:10 pm

Keynote address by the organiser, Sukayna Younger-Khan: Navigating New Media and Information Disorder (in English)

Information disorder affects us all, and it is vital that in the age of social media we know how to navigate the overwhelming amount of information that we are exposed to every day, both online and offline. The growth and pervasiveness of social media mean that anyone anywhere can post anything on these platforms without much moderation or oversight on part of the Big Tech companies running these services. This results in the proliferation of false, misleading, or manipulated information which is accessible to those looking or stumbling across it. Together with the slow decline of trust in traditional news outlets, scientists, and politicians, this has led to widespread concern about the infodemic of so-called fake news. This exhibition brings together researchers across SCRIPTS institutions to highlight the different dimensions of the challenge posed by new media and facets of the information disorder in Germany. The presentation will briefly outline the process of organising the exhibition, threats and opportunities for researchers in the field, and lessons learned from scientific research that can inoculate and protect us in the digital world.

03:25 pm.

Input “Who owns my face? Face recognition and the culture of digital images”, Dr. Roland Meyer (in German)

Private images are no longer what they used to be: Ubiquitous facial recognition makes them a resource for digital mass surveillance. In the process, the technology exacerbates racist discrimination and reinforces gender stereotypes. This article identifies the risks of facial recognition, takes a look at its history and shows how our faces have become the site of political struggles.

03:45 pm

Input “Make Facts Great Again”, Giulia Silberberger and Rüdiger Reinhardt (in German)

Why do conspiracy narratives experience such a boost in times of crisis, why do people get into these structures and what keeps them in them? Giulia Silberberger gets to the bottom of this. She also presents some of the populists' discussion tactics and offers a few emergency tips for first contact. Rüdiger Reinhardt, in turn, explains various methods of fact-checking, gives search engine tips, tools and explains how scientific work works and which logic aids can be used when debunking and discussing.

04:05 pm

Input “Strengthening against Disinformation and Conspiracy Narratives on the Internet – Approaches from Media Education”, Dr. Guido Bröckling and Fabian Wörz (in German)

Disinformation and conspiracy narratives on the net are an important challenge for the formation of political opinion in democratic societies. We can encounter them everywhere on the net: on Facebook and Twitter, but also more or less obviously in memes, in Deutschrap videos on YouTube and in the endless stream of short clips on TikTok. In the impulse lecture, media pedagogical approaches and methods will be presented on how people can be strengthened against disinformation and conspiracy narratives on the net. This is about much more than fact-checks. It is about the power of storytelling and the issues behind the issues.

04:25 pm

Individual discussions between the visitors and the speakers: Advice and description of own experiences with digital disinformation

06 pm

End of event

Speakers

Sukayna Younger-Khan is a Research Fellow at the WZB and affiliate doctoral researcher at SCRIPTS. Previously a legal advisor and law lecturer, she is now a computational researcher in the project “Towards a Typology of Contestations". Sukayna is interested in understanding why dictators (mis)communicate with their public and how disinformation influences political perceptions. Her expertise is in conflict studies, the distinction between disinformation and propaganda, autocratization versus democratisation, and computational methods.

Dr. Roland Meyer is an art historian and media scholar with a research focus on the history and theory of digital image cultures. His most recent book “Gesichtserkennung” (Wagenbach 2021) deals with automated facial recognition's cultural and social implications from a visual-cultures-perspective. In his current research, he focuses on digital image archives, navigable images, and the media archaeology of augmented spaces. Roland teaches at the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg and lives in Berlin.

Giulia Silberberger is a business economist from Berlin. She left the Jehovah's Witnesses sect in 2007 and founded the educational initiative "Der Goldene Aluhut" on Facebook in 2014. "Der Goldene Aluhut" is also the name of the non-profit UG founded in 2016, which grew out of the initiative. Today, Giulia Silberberger is committed to fighting conspiracy ideologies, fake news, and ideological abuse, as well as to political education and media literacy in schools and educational institutions. Her areas of expertise are the psychology of conspiracy belief, cults and ideological abuse, dynamics of conspiracy ideological scenes in social media, case studies and monitoring, anti-Semitism and alternative medicine, right-wing esotericism, and so-called anti-Corona movements, and stochastic terrorism.

Rüdiger Reinhardt is Management Assistant at the Goldene Aluhut. His expertise is in the fields of fact checks, astronomy, alternative medicine, esoteric, conspiracy theories, and QAnon.

Dr. Guido Bröckling is a media and cultural scientist and media educator. Since 2017, he is the head of the Berlin office of “JFF – Institut für Medienpädagogik in Forschung und Praxis”. After his dissertation at the Universität der Künste Berlin on the construction of reality and the subject’s capacity to act in the context of the media cultural transformation, he was teaching and researching media competencies at the University of Leipzig. Since 2014, he is especially interested in the theory and practice of media education concerning digitalisation, political education, and cultural education.

Fabian Wörz, is a media education lecturer at “JFF – Institut für Medienpädagogik in Forschung und Praxis” since 2017. He is designing and coordinating model projects concerning media education, and political and computational education. At the JFF, he is the head of the project RISE. RISE aims to support young adults and teenagers to find their position on social and political topics and to communicate them. Furthermore, he is coordinating the model project Isso! This project is developing methods of reflexions on information on the internet. Furthermore, he is a docent for several projects to inform educators on disinformation and conspiracy theories.

Moderation by Philip Dingeldey, research associate at the Knowledge Exchange Lab of SCRIPTS.

Audience: The Open Forum should lead to joint discussions. At any time, visitors can address the experts with their questions and experiences about disinformation on the internet and work together on individual ideas for solutions.

About the “Mall Anders”

The temporary learning lab Mall Anders (located in the shopping mall Wilma Shoppen in Berlin-Charlottenburg) was initiated by the universities of Berlin and is funded by the Berlin University Alliance until the end of June 2022. The learning lab in the style of a pop-up store leaves the spatial context of universities to intertwine with Berlin's urban and civil society innovatively and experimentally. So far, this new meeting place has offered students and local actors the opportunity to think about pressing issues of our future, to discuss proposed solutions, and sometimes to test them directly on a small scale. Since December 2021, a wide range of events on various topics has been taking place there. The Mall Anders has a model character for further projects of knowledge exchange as well as the visibility of the Clusters of Excellence of the Berlin University Alliance and its topics in unusual places.

For further information, visit: https://mall-anders.berlin/

SCRIPTS at Mall Anders

SCRIPTS wants to achieve a knowledge exchange between scientists, civil society, and citizens in the neighbourhood by cooperating with the Mall Anders. As interactive and comprehensible as possible, academics and non-academics alike shall have the opportunity to discuss liberal orders at eye level and to examine its contestations, potentials, and problems. Whether in cooperation with the other Clusters of Excellence of the Berlin University Alliance or on our own, at Mall Anders the cluster wants to bring the topics and research of SCRIPTS to the public and discuss them with an audience as broad as possible. Since SCRIPTS is about social science, it is aiming to interact with civil society in new and experimental ways, discussing and working on broad social challenges with them. In the Mall Anders, the cluster does not simply want to hold lectures or panel discussions but to achieve an exchange of knowledge of the big social issues examined by SCRIPTS by interacting with local actors; for instance, in Science Slams, Meet the Scientist, workshops, and interactive exhibitions.

Attending the Event

Admission: Events in the Mall Anders are open to all.

Language: German and English.

Registration: There is no registration needed.

Pandemic Regulations: Currently there are none.

Accessibility: Barrier-free access, the Mall Anders is on the ground floor, there is a guide system for the blind. There is also a multi-storey car park belonging to Wilma Shoppen.

How to get there: In the immediate vicinity are the Charlottenburg train station (RE, S-Bahn), the Wilmersdorfer Straße underground station (U7) and the Bismarckstraße underground station (U2/U7).