The rise of misinformation and populism: How the eroding of truth and disregarding of facts impacts our ability to create change
About this session
Our opening keynote session today comes from Peter Pomerantsev, academic, author and TV producer who specialises in propaganda and media. Together we’ll explore the huge global issues of misinformation and populism, how this is destabilising democracy, and the important role our sector can play in combatting this.
Peter is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Institute of Global Affairs at the London School of Economics. He has testified on the challenges of information war to the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the UK Parliament Defence Select Committee. He writes for publications including the Financial Times, London Review of Books, Politico, Atlantic and many others. His book on Russian propaganda, Nothing is True and Everything is Possible, won the 2016 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, was nominated for the Samuel Johnson, Guardian First Book, Pushkin House and Gordon Burns Prizes. It has been translated into over a dozen languages. His latest book This is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality, published in Summer 2019, explores global attempts to destabilise democracies through the extremisms of social media.
Following his opening plenary address, join us for an interactive Q&A where you’ll have a chance to ask Peter questions and dig deeper into this important topic and the implications for your work.