Category: News

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.

Recently, REDACT members from seven European countries travelled to Tallinn for a project workshop on current issues and next steps. Greeted by sunny Autumn weather in the beautiful Viimsi area northeast of Tallinn, we convened for two intensive days during which we, among other things, discussed our upcoming book project, social media strategy, and meetings in Croatia next year. After the workshop, several members of REDACT stayed in Tallinn and gave talks at the “Populism, Conspiracy Theories and the War against Ukraine” conference organized by the European Research Council-funded project PACT (“Populism and Conspiracy Theory”). The project, led by German PI Michael Butter, is gradually coming to an end, and has recently produced an edited volume on populism and conspiracy theory, which is available through open-access.

The PL of REDACT, Professor Clare Birchall, has begun a visiting fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford. During her time at Oxford, Clare will be working on several books that stem from grant-funded projects.

The Co-I of the Central Europe subproject was interviewed about Slovakia’s longstanding political division after the shooting of the country’s prime minister by The New York Times. Read more here.

Conspiratorial Memory, a research project funded by the European Research Council, organised a workshop dedicated to exploring the concept of conspiratorial memory at Smolenice castle, Slovakia where REDACT team members presented papers which will be published as part of an edited volume in the near future.

The Postdoc of the German subproject was interviewed for Deutschlandfunk about the conspiratorial right-wing magazine “Compact,” which he examined in his PhD dissertation. Read more here.

The PI for the UK subproject was interviewed for The Indy about conspiracy theories and what can be done to prevent them. Read more here.

The PI of the Balkan subproject was interviewed about conspiracy theories and deep fakes for “Šta se desi kad se spoje teorije zavere i veštačka inteligencija: U šta verujemo i treba li da se plašimo” by N1 Serbia. Watch the TV appearance (in Serbian) here.

The PI of Central Europe has given a talk on “Conspiracy Clutter: The Role of Suspicion and the Fear of Conspiracy in Polish Politics”, while the PI of the Baltic subproject has conducted a workshop about “Reimagining Orwell’s 1984: A Prophetic Tool in Baltic Conspiracy Narratives” at the Democracy and Conspiracy Theories in Central Eastern Europe conference in Helsinki, Finland.

The PI of the Baltics, Andreas Ventsel and Mihhail Lotman were interviewed by the Estonian podcast Nädala raamat about their Estonian-language monograph about conspiracy theories. Listen to the podcast episode (in Estonian) here.

The German PI has participated in a panel discussion on disinformation, conspiracy theories, and science communication hosted at the Weltethos-Institute in Tübingen on November 29.

The UK’s PI wrote an article for MSNBC’s online platform about the assassination of JFK and conspiracy theories. Read more here.

The Co-I of the Central Europe subproject has participated in a TV debate on digital conspiracy media, disinformation, and the limits of the freedom of speech on channel TA3. Watch the TV appearance (in Slovakian) here.

The German PI has given a talk about populism and conspiracy theory as part of the lecture series “Jenseits der Postfaktischen Wahrheit: Fiktion und Konspiration in Diskursen der Gegenwart” at the University of Basel, Switzerland on October 31.

REDACT’s Programme Leader gave an interview to The Sunday Times about celebrity conspiracy influencers. Read more here.

REDACT’s Programme Leader was interviewed by The Guardian for an article on how JFK’s assassination has impacted conspiracy theories up until today. Read more here.

The Programme Leader for REDACT was interviewed by The Independent for an article on Britney Spears-related conspiracy theories. Read more here.

The PI of the German subproject was interviewed about conspiracy theories, ambiguity, and uncertainty by the Zentrum Fokus Forschung at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna. Listen to the podcast episode (in German) here.

Almost a year after the official project launch, members of REDACT finally had the opportunity to meet in person. Researchers from nine countries and a representative of the Berghof Foundation, one of our project partners, came together in Tübingen for a workshop on comparative analyses, digital methods, “platformed conspiracism”, and disinformation. Most importantly, we could finally share our progress and plan the next steps over coffee (and later in the evening, some good German wine) instead of via screens.

The PI of the Baltics subproject and Andreas Ventsel have given a workshop on “Understanding Conflicts in Strategic Conspiracy Narratives: A Semiotic Perspective” at the 2^nd Joint Workshop in Semiotics of Tallinn University and the University of Bologna in Tallinn, Estonia.

The Co-I of the Central European subproject has written an article for the Slovak daily SME on anti-gender and anti-LGBT conspiracy theories. Read more (in Slovakian) here.

The Postdoc of the German subproject gave a talk on lateral narratives of new lateral social movements at the politics seminar series “Forms of Political Protest” at the University of Potsdam, Germany on July 11.

The PI of the German subproject and the Co-I of the UK subproject contributed lectures and workshops on conspiracy theories as part of the summer school “Denialism and Conspiracy Theory in the EU: Logic and Political Forms” at the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, Italy.

UK postdoc Ben Pelling attended the EDMO Annual Conference (25^th and 26^th May 2023) which convened policymakers, academics, regulators and journalists to discuss challenges around online disinformation and present some of the work being done to counter it.

Conference sessions and discussions on the current state of disinformation covered topics such as: AI and disinformation; Transnational responses; And disinformation and open-source intelligence. There were also presentations from academics, journalists and those working to tackle disinformation, covering: Research on disinformation and data access; Identifying Media Literacy interventions that really work; And sustainable models for independent fact-checking.

The Conference was also used as an opportunity to launch the new ‘EDMO Working Group for the Creation of an Independent Intermediary Body to Support Research on Digital Platforms’. The press release for this launch can be seen here.

The PI of the German subproject delivered a talk on whether conspiracy theories are a challenge to democracy at the Domforum in Cologne, Germany on May 23.

REDACT’s Programme Leader gave a talk to school aged students and parents on “Thinking about Conspiracy Theories” to the Southwark Schools Partnership Programme, which sparked a lot of debate and discussion on how to manage conspiracy theories that arise at home.

The Programme Leader travelled to Portugal for a talk on “Researching Conspiracy Theories” at the University of Coimbre on May 2.

The German PI gave a talk about conspiracy theories as democratic challenge and security risk at the Youth Media Program of the German Armed Forces in Strausberg on April 14.

The PI for the German subproject was interviewed for ZDFinfo about Covid-19-related conspiracy theories. Watch the documentary (in German) here.

Germany’s PI was interviewed for bildSpuren, a podcast by the Evangelische Akademie Sachsen-Anhalt, about conspiracy theories and antisemitism. Listen to the podcast episode (in German) here.

The PI of the German subproject gave a talk on conspiracy theories as a challenge to science at the “Wissenschaftsreflexion: Konzepte – Ziele – Perspektiven” conference at the National Academy of Sciences in Halle, Germany on March 29.

REDACT’s Programme Leader delivered an online talk on “Covid-19 Conspiracy Theories” as part of the SheTalks series of talks at the University of Oslo on March 23.

The PI of the German subproject held a training session on the history of disinformation and conspiracy theory for EU stakeholders.

The Central European PI and Erica Legalise have hosted a three-part podcast conversation about conspiracy theories as a form of social critique produced by The Sociological Review. Listen to the podcast series here.

Germany’s PI was interviewed for ZDF’s “Terra X History” about “Reichsbürger” and “Querdenker,” two German movements which consistently employ conspiracy theories. Watch the documentary (in German) here.

The PI for the German subproject gave an online talk on “Historical Approaches to Disinformation and Conspiracy Theory” at the European Digital Media Observatory.

The PhD candidate of the German subproject joined the team of facilitators conducting workshops at schools as part of the project #vrschwrng by the Berghof Foundation, one of REDACT’s project partners. The workshops’ goals are to teach media literacy and critical thinking skills as they relate to conspiracy theories to teenagers and young adults across Germany.

The PI for the German subproject was interviewed for the Swiss newspaper Tagesanzeiger about Telegram-conspiracy theories about the World Economic Forum. Read more here.

Germany’s PI gave an introductory talk about conspiracy theories, and a talk about their potential dangers to students at the Volkshochschule Wolfsburg, Germany.

REDACT’s Programme Leader was interviewed for Central Banking, a trade publication, about conspiracy theories and digital currencies. Read more here.

The PI of Central Europe delivered a talk on conspiracy theories and science at the EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland on December 5.

The PI of the Central Europe subproject delivered an online-talk for a workshop organised by the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism and the Radicalisation Awareness Network in The Hague, Netherlands on November 30.

The Programme Leader and the Central Europe PI of REDACT delivered training sessions and presentations of research at the International Autumn School of the Resilience League in Tallinn, Estonia. With a clear focus on disinformation and conspiracy theories, this year’s event invited distinguished guest speakers who presented their most recent research and findings in the fields to a receptive audience of young professionals with diverse backgrounds in academia, media, public sector, and civil society from over a dozen of countries.