Keynote speakers

Steven Livingston is Founding Director of the Institute for Data, Democracy, and Politics (IDDP) and Professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University (GW), School of Media and Public Affairs. In 2019, he led GW’s successful bid for a $5 million grant to found IDDP. He also founded the Public Diplomacy Institute (PDI) at GW in 2000 and served as the chairman of the Board of Directors until 2008. PDI is now the Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication.

Professor Livingston's research and teaching focus on media/information technology and political theory. He is particularly interested in the role of information technologies and media on governance, development, accountability and human rights.  In recent years, he has been a visiting senior research fellow at the Free University of Berlin; Canterbury Fellow at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand; a Visiting Scholar at the Brookings Institution in governance; a visiting professor at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland; and a visiting professor at the University of Cambridge in Britain. In the fall of 2016, Professor Livingston was appointed a Senior Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University where he served through summer 2019.

Professor Livingston has lectured at the National Defense University, the Army War College, the Strategic Studies Group at the Naval War College, the Brookings Institution, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the U.S. Institute for Peace, European Institute of Diplomacy, Vienna, the Foreign Service Institute, the U.S. Department of State, and at universities and think tanks in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He has appeared on CNN, CNNI, ABC, CBC, BBC, Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera International and many other news organizations commenting on public policy and politics. He has also been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Economist and many other newspapers around the world. He has written for Newsday, USA Today and La Stampa in Rome. His research and consulting activities have led to extended stays in Northern Ireland, Russia, Eastern and Central Europe, the Middle East, South Asia and East and Central Africa. At the invitation of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, he was twice in Iraq in 2008 and once again in 2009. At the invitation of the Canadian government and NATO, he was in Afghanistan in 2009 and 2010. He has advised a wide range of governments, the UN and NGOs on matters relating to international affairs, media, technology, and public opinion dynamics.

Among his most recent publications is an edited volume with W. Lance Bennett (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020): The Disinformation Age: Politics, Technology, and Disruptive Communication in the United States.

Terry Flew is Professor of Digital Communication and Culture in the Department of Media and Communication, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Sydney. He is an internationally recognised leader in media and communications, with research interests in digital media, global media, media policy, creative industries, media economics, and the future of journalism.

Professor Flew has authored eight books, including Media Economics (Palgrave, 2015), Global Creative Industries (Polity, 2013), Key Concepts in Creative Industries (Sage, 2013), Creative Industries, Culture and Policy (Sage, 2012), Understanding Global Media (Palgrave, 2007; Macmillan International Higher Education, 2018), and New Media: An Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2002, 2005, 2008, 2014). His newest book, Regulating Platforms, will be published by Polity in late 2021. 

Professor Flew is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (FAHA), elected in 2019. He was President of the International Communications Association (ICA) from 2019-2020, and is an ICA Fellow, elected in 2019. He has been an Executive Board member of the International Communications Association since 2013, and was President of the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA) in 2009-10. He currently leads an Australian Research Council Discovery Project on Digital Platform Governance and the Future of Media Policy. 

He has also advised policymakers and policy communities in Australia and internationally, including the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), New America Foundation, Australian Communications and Media Authority, Media Development Authority of Singapore, Russian Association of Electronic Communication, Productivity Commission, Gilbert + Tobin, and the Special Minister of State of the Australian Federal government.

Professor Flew has undertaken keynote presentations to conferences and symposia in Beijing, Shanghai, Moscow, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Jakarta, Bandung, Tokyo, Seoul, Washington, DC, Boulder, CO, Los Angeles, London, Kuala Lumpur, Taipei, Tainan, and Auckland, as well as 18 Australian universities. He is an Executive Board member of the International Communications Association (ICA) and has been Chair of the Global Communications and Social Change Division from 2015-17. He previously served as a member-at-large representing Oceania and Africa from 2012-14. In 2014, he hosted a major ICA Regional Conference held at QUT in Brisbane.

Anja Bechmann is Professor of Media Studies at Aarhus University and Director of DATALAB - Center for Digital Social Research. Her research examines social media communication and collective behaviour using large-scale data collection and applied machine learning. Professor Bechmann's fields of research are digital sociology, privacy, critical algorithmic and AI studies and digital content flow/news studies.

She is an executive board member of the European Digital Media Observatory, a member of ATV's Digital Sages and an appointed member of the Academy of Technical Sciences. She acts as a supervisor for MA and PhD theses within the area of digital social research. She is a member of several editorial boards, a reviewer for international high-ranked journals within her field and has acted as an assessment committee member for grant applications (ERC and international), professorships (associate and full) and PhD defences. She has supervised 4 postdocs, 4 PhDs, 3 research assistants and co-supervised 2 PhDs. Her research has been funded by national and international research councils such as the Danish Council for Independent Research, Swedish Research Council, Danish Agency for Science and Innovation, Horizon 2020 and Aarhus University Research Foundation. 

Natali Helberger is Distinguished University Professor of Law and Digital Technology, with a special focus on AI at the University of Amsterdam, and elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW). Her research over the past 5 years has concentrated on questions of how AI and ADM transform society, and the implications this has for law and governance. In pursuit of these questions, she is one of the co-founders ofthe Research Priority Areas Information, Communication, and the Data Society and Human(e) AI, two hubs for researchers from the social sciences, humanities and computer sciences to develop a societal perspective on AI. As one of the four AI University Professors at the UvA, member of the Dutch National AI Coalition, the VSNU AI Expert Table and track leader in the national Digital Society Initiative, Helberger plays an active role in shaping the conditions for AI research in the Netherlands.

At the international level, Helberger is, among others, Chair of the Council of Europe Expert Group on AI and Freedom of Expression (MSI-DIG), member of the Swiss National Research Programmes (NRP) ‘Digital Transformation’ and an Advisory Board Member of the Reuters Institute for Journalism, Oxford. Based on her research, she has advised, among others, the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, the OECD, UNESCO, the Dutch Parliament and national governments and regulatory authorities.

Marko Milosavljević is Professor at the Department of Journalism, University of Ljubljana, chair of the Journalism programme and a member of the Research Centre for the Terminology of Social Sciences and Journalism.

Professor Milosavljević was the Chair of Department of Journalism from 2007 to 2011, a chairman of the Expert Commission for Pluralisation of Media at Slovenian Ministry of Culture from 2009-2010, a chairman of the Expert Commission for radio and television programmes at the Slovenian Ministry of Culture from 2002-2004, and a member of National Committee for Information Society since 2010. He conducted research for organisations such as Open Society Institute London, EPRA, Hans Bredow Institute Hamburg, European Journalism Centre Maastricht, Donau-Universitat am Krems, Media Centre Sarajevo, Serbian Ministry for Higher Education, and others. He was an evaluator of South-Eastern European Network for Professionalisation of Media (SEENPM) for Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Professor Milosavljevic has worked on national, regional and comparative research on a number of issues, including public broadcasting, digital transition, digital business models, OTT economic potential in Central Europe, development of television services, ownership and transparency of media, including pluralism indicators. He consulted and conducted research for a number of regional media companies, including Pro Plus (CME), Norkring, Finance (Bonnier), Adria Media, TS Media, Slovenian Telekom, and others.