CfP: „How to survive within the information flood around COVID-19“

One of the major societal issues regarding the current COVID-19 pandemic is an overwhelming, often contradictory, flow of information from both legacy and social media. This information influences the attitudes of citizens all around the world especially regarding how they will respond towards taking the necessary measures to prevent the spread of the virus (e.g. wearing of face masks, social distancing, lockdowns, etc.) and vaccination. At the same time, as has been observed by many researchers during the last year, both regional and local media can play a very positive role in sharing helpful information within communities and increasing common resolve to survive these tough times. But many questions remain, such as how to fight the spreading of fake news, how to update editorial principles, and is AI somehow able to support these processes? And how can scientists from other disciplines effectively take part in them? 

The online international conference “How to survive within the information flood around COVID-19” organized by the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University in Prague (in collaboration with Masaryk University’s Institute of Biostatistics and Analyses and Newton Media company) on May 25, 2021 seeks papers sharing good editorial and journalistic practices  on how to fight the described situation, sometimes called infodemia, as well as sharing knowledge about interdisciplinary cooperation. Contributions containing new technologies and AI involvement are especially welcomed. We encourage both scholars and journalists to take part in our conference.

Keynote speakers will be confirmed soon.