Moderator:
Erica Edwards, Unversity of Pittsburgh
Panelists:
Ralitsa Kovacheva, Sofia University
Julia Partheymuller, University of Vienna
Elena Bruni, LUISS Gudio Carli, Italy, Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer
Not to be confused with misinformation, meaning inaccurate information, disinformation is false material meant to intentionally mislead or misinform individuals. Brought to the fore in 2016 with Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, disinformation threatens to erode trust in democratic systems, weaken individual freedoms, and increasingly undermine governments around the world. While the U.S. has yet to make meaningful progress in addressing disinformation, Europe has moved forward with new legislation and initiatives. Join us for this session of Conversation on Europe in which we ask what steps Europe is taking to shore up EU values and counter disinformation.
About our guest speakers:
Ralitsa Kovacheva, Sofia University
Dr Ralitsa Kovacheva is an Associate Professor in International Journalism at the Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication, Sofia University“St. Kliment Ohridski.” Her research interests include international politics, media coverage of the EU, and EU-related issues focusing on disinformation and propaganda. In 2020, she created a special course, “Fake News and Disinformation”, for the Faculty`s Master programmes. Ralitsa Kovacheva has many years of journalistic experience. Since May 2021, she has been
the editor-in-chief of the only platform in Bulgaria dedicated solely to factchecking- Factcheck.bg. She has published three books and a number of scientific articles.s:
Julia Partheymuller, University of Vienna
Dr. Julia Partheymüller is Senior Scientist at the Department of Government at the University of Vienna and a member of the Vienna Center for Electoral Research (VieCER). Previously, she held a position as DAAD lecturer at the University of Essex and worked as a researcher at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES). She holds a doctoral degree in the Social Sciences from the University of Mannheim and has studied Political Science at the Free University Berlin and the University of Hamburg. She is part of the project team of the Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES) and has contributed to various other projects involving large-scale survey data collection, including the Austrian Corona Panel Project (ACPP), Reconciling Europe with its Citizens through Democracy and Rule of Law (RECONNECT), and the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES). Her research focuses on the nature and origins of public opinion and political behavior in European democracies. Additionally, she has undertaken interdisciplinary work, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. She has published in peer-reviewed journals such as the British Journal of Political Science, West European Politics, Electoral Studies, the Journal of Common Market Studies, Nature Medicine and Frontiers in Public Health.
Elena Bruni, LUISS Gudio Carli, Italy, Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer, University of Pittsburgh
Elena Bruni is an Assistant Professor at LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome, Italy, and a former Marie Curie Skłodowska researcher at the Institute for Organization Studies at WU Vienna. She obtained her PhD in Management and Business from the University of Venice. Her research focuses on the linguistic and rhetorical processes that stimulate institutional change. In particular, she examines the mechanisms in which metaphors and other figures of speech are used to ascribe legitimacy and how different modes of communication (e.g., visual and written) may trigger or stifle collective action. Her work has been published recently in the Academy of Management Review and The Oxford Handbook of Metaphor in Organization Studies (2024), including two chapters written by her and her colleague Claudio Biscaro. She was awarded an additional European Commission Grant (2022-2025) to continue researching science denial and institutional trust. She is currently a Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer at University of Pittsburgh teaching “The Rhetoric of Science Denial.”
