The past few months have been quite busy with conferences and events, so here’s a quick update on what I’ve been up to recently. I’ll start here with a handful of videos from recent events – more on my recent and upcoming conference papers, journal articles, and book chapters in subsequent posts…

First, in May I was delighted to participate in a three-part series on “Future-Proofing the Public Sphere [9]”, hosted by the Centre for Deliberative Democracy & Global Governance [10] and the News & Media Research Centre [11] at the University of Canberra, and the Digital Media Research Centre [12] at QUT, where I work, which featured separate public talks from my fellow Australian Laureate Fellow John Dryzek from the University of Canberra and me and then put us in conversation in a final event. While we’re coming from different fields, our perspectives on current issues were remarkably aligned, so this was a very fruitful exchange, and I’m very thankful to my Canberra colleagues for initiating this series of events. In the original order of presentations, here are the videos of our talks.

I began the series on 2 May 2023 with my talk “The Filter in Our (?) Heads: Digital Media and Polarisation”, outlining the overall motivations for and agenda of my current Australian Laureate Fellowship [13] project:

Axel Bruns. “The Filter in Our (?) Heads: Digital Media and Polarisation [14].” First presentation in the Future-Proofing the Public Sphere [9] series, Brisbane / Canberra, 2 May 2023.

Up next on 9 May 2023 was John Dryzek’s talk “Deliberative Democracy for Diabolical Times”:

John Dryzek. “Deliberative Democracy for Diabolical Times.” Second presentation in the Future-Proofing the Public Sphere [9] series, Canberra, 9 May 2023.

And we finished on 16 May 2023 with our public debate on “Future-Proofing the Public Sphere”, moderated at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy & Global Governance by Selen Ercan:

Axel Bruns and John Dryzek, moderated by Selen Ercan. “Future-Proofing the Public Sphere [15].” Podium discussion to conclude the Future-Proofing the Public Sphere [9] series, Brisbane / Canberra, 2 May 2023.

But that’s not the only recent video: some time earlier I also spoke to the International Center for Journalists [16]’ Empowering the Truth Summit [17], presenting our research on the dissemination of disinformation through social and online media as we’ve explored it in the context of COVID-19/5G conspiracy theories [18]. Here is the video – my sincere thanks to the ICFJ for inviting me.

Axel Bruns, with Edward Hurcombe and Stephen Harrington. “The Anatomy of Virality: How COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories Spread across Social and Mainstream Media [19].” Keynote at the Empowering the Truth Summit [17], online, 23 Feb. 2023.

And that’s all for this update – more shortly!