"We are happy to be able to qualify the discussion"

The book fair takes place at the end of September and Media & Democracy's program is concentrated on the fair days Friday and Saturday, September 27-28. The common theme will be the challenges of the digital information and media landscape. Concretely, it concerns issues around disinformation, influence operations and developed methodologies and resources to verify facts, claims and data.

- Our questions about how democracy should resist deliberate attempts to manipulate public opinion are not only urgent but also extremely topical. We are happy to be able to participate in qualifying the discussion, says Robert Olsson, chairman of Media & Democracy, who is part of the program council for the book fair's Freedom of Expression Square.

2024 class as a global super election year and the issues are highly topical. The talks are above all linked to the national initiative Forum for Democratic Communication, which Medier & demokrati leads. At the same time, it also matches the projects Strengthened local journalism in crisis situations and Local information landscape in crisis and war.
- It will be the first time that the Forum for Democratic Communication will perform in public, which is a lot of fun.

Robert Olsson will moderate the four program items at Yttrandefrihetstorget.

The media & democracy seminar - To protect oneself against misinformation - is led by Thomas Mattsson, senior advisor Bonniers News and former editor-in-chief of Expressen.

Here are all of Media & Democracy's features at the Book Fair:

SEMINAR

• Election year 2024: Protecting against misinformation

  Friday 27 September 11.00-11.45, stage F5

  By December, half of the world's population will have been involved in an electoral process in 2024. At the same time, the spread of misinformation makes it difficult for people to make informed decisions in democratic elections. Elections, lobbying operations, tech giants and news media are discussed here.

  Participants: Anna Careborg, news director at SVT, Cecilia Khavar, current with the book Stormingen av Kapitoleum, Mikael Tofvesson, head of the operational department and deputy head of authority at the Agency for Psychological Defense and Sara Övreby, head of social policy at Google.
  
  Program manager: Thomas Mattsson, senior advisor Bonnier News.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH SQUARE
 

• Freedom of speech and new technology

  Friday 27 September 13.00-13.20 
  
  Freedom of speech and new technology. How can AI be of journalistic benefit and thereby contribute to the democratic conversation? Review function by being able to handle large amounts of data? To quickly have statements made live verified as true or false? Using data-inspired journalism to quickly get surveys out to large defined target groups? To counteract corruption in public tasks?

  Participants: Thomas Mattsson, senior advisor Bonnier News, former editor-in-chief at Expressen and Agnes Stenbom, head of IN/LAB and trust issues at Schibsted Media and founder of the industry network Nordic AI Journalism.

• Influence operations

  Friday 27 September 16.30-16.50 
  
  What do the influence operations look like that risk affecting Swedish openness through conscious attempts to control opinions, which means that freedom of expression is harmed? And what is the purpose of undermining Swedish democracy? 
  
  Participants: Mikael Tovfesson, operational manager of the Psychological Defense Agency and Inas Hamdan, journalist and author who in 2023 received the Stora Journalistprizet for his review of how Al-Jazeera spread incorrect information about the Swedish social services.
   

• Verification of data

  Saturday 28 September 11.30-11.50

  How do the Swedish media houses work to verify the large influx of text, images and sound so that false information is not spread in free and independent media that have high credibility in relation to their news consumers? The public service companies have a stated responsibility for accurate reporting and have a targeted mission in crisis situations.

  Participants: Anna Careborg, news and sports director at Sveriges Television and Gabriel Byström, acting CEO and head of staff and security at Sveriges Radio.
   

• Super election year 2024

  Saturday 28 September 15.00-15.20

  Super election year 2024. Great concern about extensive disinformation campaigns, not least in the upcoming US election. What expectations can we place on a just and fair election? And in Sweden, half of the term has passed; how big is the risk of undue influence of the upcoming Swedish election?

  Participants: Bengt Johansson, professor Gothenburg University and Sanna Torén Björling, reporter at Dagens Nyheter and former US correspondent.