EDMO Hubs meeting in Rome (8-9 March 2023)
The European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) had the pleasure to gather all the EDMO Hubs in Rome on 8-9 March 2023 for the first time since the announcement of the expansion of the network to all 27 EU member states. The Italian Hub of EDMO (IDMO) hosted the event. The General Director of Luiss, Giovanni Lo Storto, has welcomed this growing international community in the splendid Sala delle Colonne at Luiss University.
The EDMO hubs are part of a network of organizations operating in one or more Member States – respectively, national or multinational hubs. Their primary objective is to provide their expertise in the local environment to enhance the detection and analysis of disinformation campaigns, raise public awareness, and develop effective responses for their specific national audiences.
The activities carried out by the hubs are valuable as they focus on digital media threats and disinformation campaigns in their respective linguistic area, thereby serving as a vital source of knowledge all across the diversity of the EU.
Two Hubs that started their activities one year and a half ago had the opportunity to share the most important results of their projects and their partners.
NORDIS, represented by Anja Bechmann – covering Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. They shared results from fact-checkers and University partners, underlying the need for a shared infrastructure, which would bring benefits for both fact-checkers and researchers. Among its findings, NORDIS also highlighted the necessity for more research on the Nordic region, with an increase in the allocation of financial resources.
IBERIFIER, represented by Ramón Salaverría – covering Spain in Portugal. They launched an Iberian Digital Media Map & Dataset, which includes open access to more than 220.000 data. During his presentation, IBERIFIER encouraged the exploration and synergies with other hubs, aiming to produce more meaningful outputs.
Drawing on those experiences, the newest Hubs, will join the activities carried out and implemented by their European colleagues while contributing to the fight against disinformation across Europe. Each of them will be in charge of the following:
- Detecting and analyzing disinformation campaigns, as well as producing content to support mainstream and local media and public authorities in exposing harmful disinformation campaigns;
- Organizing media literacy activities at the national or multinational level;
- Providing support to national authorities for the monitoring of online platforms’ policies and the digital media ecosystem.
For more information about the EDMO Hubs, see here.