Panel details

Panel organiser(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online
Number of paper presentations	4

Abstract

Since 2020 the world has witnessed a series of new and continuing humanitarian crises from the COVID-19 pandemic, natural hazards and the impacts of climate change, attempted military coups from Burkina Faso, Sudan, and Myanmar, to the invasion of Ukraine. The digital and real-life information landscape has diversified, and the role of misinformation and disinformation via social media and digital platforms and more generally is a cause for concern because of its impact on the response and the additional harm it can cause. So far, several policy initiatives have targeted responses to both digital and real-life misinformation and disinformation, falling into four general categories: (1) Educational – making people more resilient; (2) Protective – using high-tech means to detect and counter misinformation and disinformation; (3) Repressive – using technologies to block the manipulation of information; and (4) Political – efforts to reach an understanding among states on the subversive impact of disinformation on international trust and security, and to design confidence-building measures (Gerrits. 2018, pp.13-14). However, the impacts of digital and real-life misinformation and disinformation via social media and digital platforms and more generally on humanitarian crises from a human security perspective has received less attention than militarised approaches linked to cybersecurity. In this panel, we will explore the human security dynamics of the digital and real-life information landscape and their implications for crises, exploring how evidence-based research can inform humanitarian action.

Paper presentations