Battling Disinformation: Exposing and Checking the Not-so-Hidden Hands that Imperil Democracy
Virtual Event
Countries across the Americas, Europe and beyond are struggling to combat the rise of anti-democratic ethnonationalist political movements. Increasingly, state actors and agents outside democracies like Russia and China aggressively deploy false information through both traditional and social media information to sew discord and support friendly, anti-democratic leaders and movements.
However, as dangerous as this outside authoritarian meddling is to democracy, even more disturbing is the increasing use of disinformation by actors within once-stable democracies. Media polarization and disinformation have become core issues, even for countries with strong traditions of free speech and open information flow. In America, UK and across Europe, right-wing, domestic ethnonationalists – often extreme and harboring anti-democratic goals--are purposefully fabricating and spreading lies to influence voter attitudes, spread confusion and division, and undermine trust in democracy, its institutions, and leaders.
Join leaders from across North America and Europe who are on the front lines of exposing and combatting the pernicious work of anti-democratic forces within and without of our countries. Discussants include:
- Europe-US: Kateri Jochum, former journalist at the German "Deutsche Welle", ABC, VOX media and Wall Street Journal, leading international specialist on media and communications
- Hungary: Peter Kreko, Executive Director of Political Capital, and a Research Associate at Central European University, Budapest, Hungary; behavioral scientist and disinformation expert on the psychological drivers of belief in disinformation, its political-institutional impacts, state-sponsored disinformation, effective counterstrategies.
- US: Martina Guzman, Detroit-based journalist and media innovator. Founder of VERDAD, a tool that monitors ethnic media for disinformation created to fill a critical gap in how misinformation spreads through ethnic media—and arm researchers and journalists with the tools to track and challenge it.
- Poland: Maria Skoria, Political consultant and a Policy Fellow at Das Progressive Zentrum, a think tank based in Berlin.
- Facilitated by: Henning Wrage: Professor at Gettysburg College and Heidelberg University, and leading scholar of forces shaping post-war European politics and culture.
Zoom Webinar: Virtual Event
Date/Time: Thursday, September 4, 10AM to 11AM EST
Admission: FREE
Hosted by Heartland Transformation Network in partnership with Jefferson Educational Society
Kateri Jochum is an audio journalist with 15+ years experiences that have spanned the breadth of the industry. She has covered breaking news stories for a variety of international networks and outlets; pitched, reported and hosted small to long-form features, built podcasts from scratch and led teams of different sizes.
Ms. Jochum is a results-driven multi-media editor and instructor with strong technical skills and a hands-on work ethic who prides in the success stories of learners from different cultures and professional backgrounds. Seasoned project manager with experience in grant writing, budgets and personnel management. Operational problem-solver who can create unique work-flow solutions through integration of online and offline platforms. Professional storyteller with experience in media relations, on-camera interviews, speech-writing, the development of press materials and event management.
Péter Krekó is a behavioral scientist and disinformation expert whose research explores the psychological drivers of belief in disinformation, its political-institutional impacts, state-sponsored disinformation, effective counterstrategies. He holds a PhD from Eötvös Loránd University, where he studied the social psychology of conspiracy theories. He is a Research Affiliate at the CEU Democracy Institute, an Engaging Central Europe Fellow at the German Marshall Fund, and a senior fellow at CEPA. He was previously a PopBack Fellow at the University of Cambridge, a guest researcher at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, and a non-resident Associate Fellow at Johns Hopkins SAIS Bologna. He has also served as a Fulbright Visiting Professor at Indiana University. Krekó is the owner and director of Political Capital Institute and leads Hungary’s disinformation hub (HDMO-Lakmusz), supported by the European Commission under the European Digital Media Observatory at the European University Institute.
Martina Guzmán is an award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker. She is a 2023 John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University. Martina is the founder and director of the Race & Justice Reporting Initiative at the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit, Michigan. As an independent journalist and documentary filmmaker, Martina covers race, justice, and systemic inequality. Her work has appeared on NPR, The Guardian, Slate, PBS, and Next City, among many others. Martina was the Detroit correspondent for The Takeaway, a radio news program co-created and co-produced by Public Radio International and WNYC. Her community reporting with Detroit's NPR affiliate, WDET, led to her being named Best Statewide Individual Reporter by the Associated Press. Her exploration into the rise and fall of global, post-industrial cities earned her the Best Series Award from the Michigan Broadcasters Association and Best Investigative Series from the Associated Press of Michigan. She has received numerous grants and reporting fellowships, including fellowships from New American Media and the German Marshall Fund. Martina received a Ford Foundation reporting grant to investigate the impacts of water shut-offs for women of color in South Africa and Detroit.
Martina has helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for media organizations committed to centering BIPOC and immigrant voices. She believes we must increase pay to independent journalists and that community and freelance reporters are the backbone of a healthy democracy. Martina is a graduate of the Journalism School at Columbia University in New York City and the proud daughter of Mexican immigrants.
Maria Skóra is a policy fellow at Das Progressive Zentrum. Previously, she was Research Associate at the Institut für Europäische Politik and head of the International Dialogue program at Das Progressive Zentrum. She holds a master’s degree in sociology and a PhD in economics. 2018 Alumna of the Young Leaders Program at the Aspen Institute Central Europe in Prague. 2019 Visiting Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and AICGS, Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC. She previously worked for the Humboldt-Viadrina Governance Platform in Berlin and as an expert for the All-Poland Federation of Trade Unions in Warsaw.
Henning Wrage received his Dr. phil. with summa cum laude in German literature from Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. His thesis (published as Die Zeit der Kunst with Winter University Press: Heidelberg 2009) is a comparative history of East German literature, film and television in the 1960s.
Other major publications include
- Alltag. Zur Dramaturgie des Normalen im DDR-Fernsehen. Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag 2006
- with Thomas Beutelschmidt: ‚Das Buch zum Film - der Film zum Buch.' Annäherung an den literarischen Kanon im DDR-Fernsehen. Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag 2004
- with Thomas Beutelschmidt, Rüdiger Steinlein, et al. (Eds.): Das literarische Fernsehen. Beiträge zur deutsch-deutschen Medienkultur. Frankfurt a.M., New York et al.: Lang 2007
- with David Oels and Almuth Meissner (Eds.): Sachbuch und Kinder- und Jugendliteratur. Special Issue of Non-Fiktion. Arsenal der anderen Gattungen 1/2010
- with Marc Silberman (Eds.): DEFA at the Crossroads of East German and International Film Culture: A Companion. Berlin, New York: Walter De Gruyter 2014
His current research has two focuses: German media and postwar culture, and the cultural history of interactivity. Two larger book projects are in progress, one on the relationship between Theodor Adorno and the German student movement, one on German director Wolfgang Staudte.
Beyond all levels of the language sequence, Henning Wrage has developed a wide range of classes, most of them cross-listed with CIMS and/or counting towards curricular goals (see below).
At Gettysburg, Henning Wrage has fulfilled different service functions. He was the chair of the German Studies department in 2019, and 2020-22, served as the Convener of Chairs (2021-22), and, among others,
- as a Faculty Fellowship Advisor,
- in the Academic Affairs Workgroup,
- in the Chairs' committee to revise student evaluations,
- on the JCCTL advisory committee,
- on Faculty Council,
- on the Review Board for Negative Tenure Decisions,
- as a Qualified Administrator for the IDI,
- on the Educational Technology Committee,
- as an International First Year Student Advisor,
- on the Fulbright Interview Committee
- and as the German House Mentor.
He was awarded the Luther W. and Bernice L. Thompson Distinguished Teaching Award in 2019. He also was awarded Research and Professional Development grants, a Mellon Curricular Diversity Grant, a JCCTL Resilient Pedagogy grant and others.
