Propaganda and Strategic Communications: Experience of EU and Visegrad Countries workshop in Belgrade

On 12 October 2016, GLOBSEC Policy Institute organised on sidelines of the Belgrade Security Forum 2016 (BSF) the expert workshop entitled “Propaganda and Strategic Communications: Experience of EU and Visegrad Countries”. The workshop had a form of the Night Owl Session and featured following kick-off speakers: Amb. Daniel Schaer, Ambassador of Estonia to Serbia, Mr. Ruslan Deynychenko, co-founder and executive director of the StopFake, Ukrainian fact-checking portal that fights against propaganda and Mr. Jakub Janda, Deputy Director of the European Values, think-tank from the Czech Republic. The moderator of the expert workshop was Andrej Matišák from Slovak Daily Pravda. The participants of the workshop were members of the Serbian Parliament, experts from state institutions, think-tanks, NGOs and academia from Serbia and the Western Balkans. The goal of the panel was to share the experience of Visegrad countries as well as Estonia and Ukraine with their exposure to Russian propaganda and information warfare, and how to address them. Serbia and the Western Balkans are in very similar position due to growing influence of Russia in the area of information and so-called alternative media. Serbia is particularly vulnerable due to its history of relations with Russia and NATO’s negative perception by the Serbian population due to the Alliance’s involvement in the Kosovo crisis in 1998-9. Speakers from Slovakia, Czech Republic, Estonia and Ukraine shared their experience on how to address disinformation campaigns through fact-checking and debunking all forms of propaganda. The expert workshop was organised within the regional project “Visegrad for the South-East Europe: Towards Successful Integration“ supported by the “International Visegrad Fund” implemented by the GLOBSEC in Serbia and Montenegro from September 2015 – March 2017. The expert workshop was organised within GLOBSEC’s partnership with the Belgrade Security Forum, GLOBSEC has been partner to the BSF already 6th time in row.

For more information please see belgradeforum.org