The Covid pandemic against the backdrop of post-truth politics
The Nordic House
Open seminar Thursday 18 March from 13:00 to 15:00 at the Nordic house
Controversies surrounding the question of how best to tackle the ongoing Covid pandemic are a striking illustration of the challenges of post-truth politics for liberal democracies. Social and other digital media provide an infrastructure through which deliberate disinformation and conspiracy theories can spread more easily than ever before. At the same time, populist politicians have fuelled a disdain for scientific expertise and even for basic facts. In various liberal democracies, this has created political cultures in which the symbolic authority of the truth has been fundamentally undermined, accompanied by an erosion of trust in established media institutions. Yet at the same time, the pandemic has also served as a reminder of the necessity of scientific research and trust in the institutions that communicate the findings of such research.
Here is a link to the live streaming from our event. If you wish to join us in the Nordic House, please make sure to register via this link.
Opening remarks by Professor Maximilian Conrad, University of Iceland
Keynote address by Professor Saul Newman, Goldsmiths, University of London
Discussants:
Elfa Ýr Gylfadóttir, Director of the Media Commission in Iceland
Professor Guðmundur Hálfdánarson, University of Iceland
Jón Gunnar Ólafsson, Post Doc, University of Iceland
Moderator: Auður Örlygsdóttir, Project Manager, Höfði Reykjavík Peace Centre at the University of Iceland
This workshop is part of the Jean Monnet Network Post-Truth Politics, Nationalism and the (De-)Legitimation of European Integration, led by Höfði Reykjavík Peace Centre at the University of Iceland, in collaboration with five other universities from Europe and North America.
The workshop is organized as a hybrid event. It will thus take place both on site in the Nordic House, with a limited audience - please make sure to register - as well as online.
Open seminar at the Nordic House Thursday 18 March at 13.00 - 15.00. Please make sure to register to the event.