The UNESCO Chair of Communication, Media and Information Literacy and Citizenship (ESCS-UPL/LIACOM) is taking part in the ORBICOM Annual Conference, a leading international gathering of UNESCO Chairs dedicated to communication. The event takes place from 26 to 30 October in Montreal, Canada.
Under the theme “Media, Artificial Intelligence and Democracy: Communicational imaginaries in a fragmented digital world”, the conference brings together researchers, professionals, students and institutions from around the world to discuss “the fragmentation of digital public spaces”, the effects of the “rise of platforms and the transformations of journalism on the circulation of information”, and the implications of these phenomena for “citizen participation and democratic imaginaries”, as stated on the event’s official website.
The UNESCO Chair at ESCS and LIACOM is represented by Fernanda Bonacho, Chairholder, lecturer at ESCS and researcher at LIACOM.
On Tuesday, 27 October, Fernanda Bonacho will participate in the UNESCO Chairs plenary session, during which the Common Research Agenda for Media and Information Literacy (MIL) 2027–2031 will be presented.
The following day, 28 October, she will present the paper “From MIL to Civic Engagement: Communication Strategies for Citizen Empowerment within UNESCO Chairs”, as part of a panel on “Digital Citizenship, Participation and Civic Emancipation”. The researcher will also chair a session dedicated to media pluralism, cultural exchanges and technological alternatives, bringing together speakers from Zimbabwe, Congo-Brazzaville, Malaysia, Canada and Argentina.
Later that day, Fernanda Bonacho will represent Europe in an inter-Chair workshop dedicated to “AI, Governance, and Measuring the Impact of MIL”. The session aims to encourage joint reflection on indicators for assessing the impact of media literacy interventions, methods for measuring behaviours associated with engagement with information, strategies for comparing different regions, and methodological tools to be developed.
The conference programme is structured around six thematic areas: Media and Digital Literacy in a Geopoliticised World; Emerging Technologies, Human Rights and Regulation; Cultural, Linguistic and Epistemic Diversity in the Digital Age; Journalism, Trust and the Public Space; Education, Critical Thinking and Digital Citizenship; and Information Technologies, Democratic Infrastructure and AI Literacy.
This edition, which is part of UNESCO’s Global Media and Information Literacy Week celebrations, is organised through a partnership between ORBICOM and the UNESCO Chair in Communication and Technologies for Development at the Université du Québec (Canada).