Carolina’s global partnerships propel transatlantic research on media, democracy
November 11, 2024UNC Global Affairs
Carolina’s Center for Information, Technology and Public Life (CITAP) welcomes participants to a two-day workshop entitled “Threats to Democracy: A Transatlantic Workshop on Media and the 2024 Elections.” Photo by CITAP.
Rapid technological advances and growing concern over information warfare are shaping today’s media landscape with the potential to undermine democracies.
Researchers from a wide array of disciplines at UNC-Chapel Hill and two of Carolina’s strategic partner universities — Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen and King’s College London — discussed these ideas, Oct. 23-24, at a two-day workshop called “Threats to Democracy: A Transatlantic Workshop on Media and the 2024 Elections.”
Carolina’s Center for Information, Technology and Public Life (CITAP) hosted the workshop in partnership with UNC Global Affairs, Thomas Mann House Los Angeles, the UNC Center for European Studies (CES) and UNC School of Information and Library Science (SILS). More than 50 people attended a total of four panel sessions, which featured 23 panelists from diverse disciplines. The sessions covered transatlantic perspectives on social movements, media and polarization in democracies.
Daniel Kreiss, faculty director and principal investigator at CITAP, as well as Edgar Thomas Cato Distinguished Professor at UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media, coordinated the workshop and received a Global Partnership Award from UNC Global Affairs to cover some of the cost of workshop.
“This workshop was a key opportunity to bring together partners to collaborate on a number of the really big, pressing issues of our time,” Kreiss said. “Namely, how do we create democratic resilience in transatlantic countries that are experiencing democratic strain?”
CITAP designed the workshop to encourage the exchange of ideas, with hopes that it will lead to further collaboration, research and publication among participants on media and democracy.
One participant was Guido Zurstiege, professor for media studies at Tübingen. As a panelist during the opening session, he offered a German perspective on the challenges democracies on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean face from media and technological shifts, especially as they relate to elections and participation. Zurstiege has been a long-time collaborator with Carolina, particularly between media and journalism faculty.
“The partnership bridges diverse fields of expertise,” Zurstiege said. “This broad approach can lead to innovative research and increase both institutions’ eligibility to apply for larger grants and research funding opportunities, supporting longer-term, in-depth studies that might not be feasible for a single institution.”
On Thursday evening, the symposium culminated in a fireside chat on media coverage of the U.S. presidential election. Kreiss moderated the discussion, which featured Tressie McMillan Cottom, CITAP principal investigator, SILS professor and New York Times columnist, and Juliane Schäuble, U.S. Correspondent for the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel. Kreiss, McMillan Cottom and Schäuble discussed how the media influences the public’s understanding of candidates and elections. Schäuble focused on how foreign media frame U.S. politics, and McMillan Cottom addressed the intersection of social narratives — race, class and gender, for example — in U.S. politics.
“We can’t study these issues in isolation,” Kreiss said. “We have to learn from other nations.”
Global partnerships are critical to Carolina’s mission of “leading change to improve society and to help solve the world’s greatest problems,” as many of those problems transcend national borders. Over time, the University has cultivated a vibrant international network of scholars to engage in collaborative thinking and research.
“Good partnerships happen over time,” Kreiss said. “They grow; they evolve. And these partnerships are not just about Carolina going to Tübingen and Tübingen coming to Carolina, for example, but it’s Tübingen and Carolina thinking together about the most pressing issues of our time.”
Krista Northup, director of global partnerships at UNC Global Affairs, supports faculty engagement with King’s, Tübingen and other partner universities. She said the workshop is an exciting demonstration of what can happen when thought leaders across institutions collaborate.
“The workshop highlighted the value of bringing institutions like King’s and Tübingen together into the topics and issues our faculty are tackling,” she said. “A comparative lens can bring unique perspectives and often new approaches to the table.”
Support for the workshop from UNC Global Affairs was provided through a Global Partnership Award which offer Carolina faculty opportunities to cultivate meaningful and productive relationships with international partner institutions. Faculty can receive exploration or expansion grants to expand their research efforts.
Faculty interested in learning more about Global Partnership Awards may contact Carolina’s global partnerships team. The next application deadline is in March.