In the last week of February, the Perry World House Center at the University of Pennsylvania organized a conference titled “Security at Stake: Media, Democracy, and Repression.” The event brought together a diverse group of experts—including policymakers, scholars, researchers, and journalists—to examine “the role of local and public media institutions in democracies and explore how governments, civil society, and other stakeholders can build resilience against foreign information manipulation and interference.”
Our director, Marius Dragomir, represented the center in these discussions. He highlighted research from our State Media Monitor project, shedding light on how governments worldwide simultaneously combat and perpetuate disinformation.
Marius was joined by distinguished experts from prestigious academic and media institutions including Goldsmiths University of London (Des Freedman), Center for Democracy & Resilience, GLOBSEC (Dominika Hajdu), Rappler (Marites D. Vitug), International Fund for Public Interest Media (Khadija Patel), Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania (Victor Pickard), Center for Security, Innovation & New Technology at American University (Samantha Bradshaw), and SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University (Peter Pomerantsev), among others.
The conference opened with a keynote address by Francisco Sagasti, former President of Peru.