MediaTrust.Lab International Conference

18th and 19th of November 2024 , Universidade da Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal

The MediaTrust.Lab International Conference is one of the latest events in a project that has been focusing on local disinformation and media literacy in Portugal since August 2021. “Building Trust: Platforms, Local Media and Audiences” is the motto for this conference, which will take place on the 18th and 19th of November 2024, at the Faculty of Arts and Letters of the University of Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal. It will only be in person.

We want this conference to be a center for strategic debate on three axes: platforms, media, and audiences. Always designed around the local dimension. In this sense, we do not want a mass event, but a smaller and more fruitful one for the debate. Therefore, we invite colleagues to send abstracts that address the following themes, as well as others that are aligned with the sub-themes:

Platforms: aggregation and distribution of local news; monetization of local content; financing of local resources; fact-checking partnerships with local media; emerging trends in platform-based approaches to support and strengthen local journalism; etc.

Local media: new journalistic projects; literacies and strategies to combat disinformation; initiatives to combat “news deserts”; digital tools and fact checking with audiences; sustainability and resilience in local media; etc.

Audiences: collaboration with local media and journalists in the production of news and/or fact-checking; collaboration in the dissemination of fact-checking; management, production and promotion of non-journalistic and/or community communication projects; initiatives to combat “news deserts”; engaging diverse audiences in news and information; etc.

Summaries must be structured to include the topic and its relevance, hypothesis or argument, conceptual and methodological framework and expected results. They must be written in English, contain 400-500 words (excluding references) and 3-5 keywords.

The proposals will then be evaluated by the conference’s Scientific Committee, and the result must be communicated to all authors by October 1, 2024. In cases of acceptance, guidelines will be sent for publishing the articles in an open access book edited by LabCom Books.


REGISTER

Registration is free, but mandatory, for those who do not submit communications.

Just send an email to mediatrust [at] labcom.ubi.pt with your name and affiliation


PROGRAM

Day 1 (November 18th)

09:00 am – Registration

09:30 am – Open session

10:00 am – Opening Conference: “Lights and shadows of collaboration to reduce disinformation”, by Bella Palomo (Univ. Malaga, Spain)

11:00 am – Coffee break

11:30 am – Communications sessions

01:00 pm – Lunch break

02:30 pm – Special session

03:00 pm – Communications sessions

04:30 pm – Coffee break

05:00 pm – Communications sessions


Day 2 (November 19th)

10:00 am – MediaTrust.Lab session

11:30 am – Coffee break

12:00 am – Closing Conference: “News media and fact-checkers amid an age of platformization”, by Oscar Westlund (OsloMet, Norway)

01:30 pm – Closing session 


KEYNOTES

Bella Palomo is a professor at the Department of Journalism at the University of Málaga, Spain, where she coordinates the project “Disinformation Research – Impact of Disinformation on Journalism: Contents, Professional and Public Routines” (PID2019-108956RB-I00), funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation from Spain. Her lines of research focus on new journalistic routines, information on the Internet, participatory journalism, editorial design, and disinformation. He has written numerous articles related to online journalistic design, the relationship between the Internet and journalists and the challenges posed by active audiences. Member of eight national and international research projects on these issues over the last two decades. He worked for ten years as a journalist at Diario Sur, in Málaga.

More information: https://www.uma.es/departamento-de-periodismo/info/73080/perfil-bella-palomo/

Oscar Westlund is a professor in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway, where he co-leads the OsloMet Digital Journalism Research Group. He also holds a secondary position at the University of Gothenburg. Westlund specializes in digital journalism, fact-checking, platforms, media management, news consumption and mobile. He is editor-in-chief of Digital Journalism journal and has also been responsible for special editions of several other important international scientific journals. He is currently involved in several research projects focused on disinformation.

More information: https://www.oslomet.no/om/ansatt/oscarw/


SCIENTIFIC COUNCIL

Anabela Gradim (Univ. Beira Interior, Portugal)

Bruno Silva (Univ. Beira Interior, Portugal)

Elvira Garcia de Torres (CEU Cardenal Herrera Univ., Spain)

Inês Amaral (Univ. Coimbra, Portugal)

Jacques Mike (Univ. Fed. Santa Catarina, Brasil)

João Miranda (Univ. Coimbra, Portugal)

João Pedro Baptista (Univ. Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal)

Maria José Brites (Univ. Lusófona, Portugal)

Pedro Jerónimo (Univ. Beira Interior, Portugal)

Ricardo Morais (Univ. Porto, Portugal)

Rita Basílio Simões (Univ. Coimbra, Portugal)

Seth Lewis (Univ. Oregon, EUA)

Sílvio Santos (Univ. Coimbra, Portugal)

Tatiana Dourado (Univ. Beira Interior, Portugal)

Xosé López Garcia (Univ. Santiago de Compostela, Spain)


PROMOTERS

MediaTrust.Lab – https://mediatrust.ubi.pt/

LabCom – https://labcomca.ubi.pt/en/

University of Beira Interior – https://www.ubi.pt/en/

University of Coimbra – https://www.uc.pt/en/


IMPORTANT DATES

End of call for papers: September 15, 2024

Author notification regarding review: October 1, 2024

Presentation of communications: November 18-19, 2024


SUBMISSION

Register here.