2017•05•03     Quito

Mariana Lameiras, Postdoctoral Fellow at UNU-EGOV, delivered a tutorial entitled “Citizens, Politics and Social Media – Trends, Impacts and Lessons Learnt” at the International Conference on e-Democracy & e-Government (ICEDEG 2017) held in Quito, Ecuador.

The tutorial was specifically focused on the following topics: the symbolism of media; a new contemporary media culture, challenged by globalization, digital evolutions and other surrounding hypes (namely uncertainties about the concept of media, the work of media professionals, citizen journalism, phenomena as fake news and post-truth politics, and other); a social media ideology as defended by Christian Fuchs; the concept of e-participation in the scientific literature (routes, research enquiries, trends and challenges); digital political participation; and the results of research developed in this area at UNU-EGOV. The feedback from the audience revealed serious concerns about the impact of social media and fake news as well as with the ways governments should deal with the problem in order to guide citizens’ news consumption and foster media literacy.

The 2017 edition of the International Conference on e-Democracy & e-Government was held at the Instituto de Altos Estudios Nacionales (IAEN) between 19-21 April 2017. The main objective of this annual scientific event is to discuss the transition of Latin America to an information and knowledge society that will accelerate and enhance regional economic, social, cultural and technological development and exchange.

Quito is the capital of Ecuador and was founded in the 16th century on the ruins of an Inca city. Despite the 1917 earthquake, the city has the best-preserved, least altered historic centre in Latin America.