Author: Mara Precoma

King’s College London has just published a comprehensive press release outlining the main findings of REDACT, and giving some insight into the different regions’ peculiarities. The press release can be found here.

In September, eleven REDACT members travelled to historic Dubrovnik, Croatia, for their final project workshop. Over the course of two days, we finalised our project report for stakeholders across Europe, worked on the introduction of our collaborative book, and planned an online stakeholder event to be held at the end of November. Even the most camera-shy among us agreed to be filmed by wonderful student assistant Julius Haferkorn for short videos about our project findings. Between work sessions, we enjoyed Dubrovnik’s late-summer sunshine, got competitive at water polo, ate plenty of fish, and debated which ice cream shop in town is the best. 

Project leader Clare Birchall, Estonian PI Mari-Liis Madisson and Croatian PI Nebojša Blanuša recently travelled to Kraków, Poland, for the CHANSE Final Conference on 8-9 September. Held under the motto “We Are CHANSE,” the event showcased the achievements of the 26 projects funded under the CHANSE Transformations call. REDACT presented research on 15-minute city conspiracy theories in the UK, and exchanged ideas and insights with several other projects and stakeholders concerned with digital resilience and trust. 

As projects reach their final stages, CHANSE has created a catalogue featuring inspiring and impactful “stories of change” from the 26 projects funded under the CHANSE Transformations call. REDACT’s story of change features project member Pavol Hardoš, a founding member of Konspiratori.sk – an organisation that lists websites publishing conspiracy theories. Our story of change outlines how REDACT’s research findings have influenced the organisation’s public-facing communication and practice, including its definition of conspiracy theories. REDACT’s story of change can be found here. 

German Postdoc Felix Schilk provides a short introduction to conspiracy theories in a new “Faktencheck” (fact-checking) video by the Dresden University of Technology. You can watch the video (in German) here.

The lecture, titled “Making Sense of Conspiracy Theories,” asks the important question whether the rise of conspiracy theories is a symptom rather than the cause of a collapse of trust in civic institutions. You can find more information and watch the full lecture here.