Disinformation, Polarisation and the Future of Democracy Jessica Cecil and Aurelien Mondon
Event details
The re-emergence of President Trump and the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement in the US, National Rally in France, the Alternative for Germany (AFD) in Germany and Reform in the UK; these and similar groups in the Netherlands, the former states of Eastern Europe, the Balkans and beyond, reflect a deep and fundamental polarisation in society.
Political disagreement is now characterised by allegations that opponents are ‘traitors’, by disputes over basic facts and by an unwillingness even to consider compromise. These splits are created and maintained by misinformation and by an increasingly global movement to destabilise the international rules-based order.
Can societies – can democracy – survive in such circumstances? What can be done to rein in big tech (Meta, X, Amazon etc) and the ‘Broligarchy’? Finding answers to these questions is critical not only to the future of democracy, but to national security and sovereignty.
Taking an agile approach to emerging world events, our expert panel discusses these issues and more. Our speakers include Aurelien Mondon of the University of Bath, an expert on reactionary politics and Jessica Cecil, a leading media industry figure and an expert in the field of disinformation, who works at the intersection of media and tech.
Why not come along and join in the conversation?
This event is part of the Festival Focus ‘A World in Crisis?’ presented in collaboration with the Morrell Centre for Legal and Political Philosophy. You may also be interested in ‘A New World Order?' and ‘Is Europe Safe?’ which are taking place the same day.
About the speakers
Jessica Cecil is a leading media industry figure and an expert in the field of disinformation, currently working as a consultant to media and tech companies. In 2019 she started and led the Trusted News Initiative (TNI), the world’s only alliance of major international tech companies and news organisations to counter the most harmful disinformation in real time. Jessica’s media industry leadership experience was honed over a 30-year career at the BBC. She was Chief of Staff to four Directors-General and gained a track record of creating and leading global alliances responding to the changes tech is having on audience’s lives. Before the TNI, she led a 30 partner-strong initiative to get the world to learn how to code. The result was the creation, manufacture and distribution of a codeable computer, the micro:bit. 6 million micro:bits have now been sold in 50 countries and are used by 25m children from Singapore to Finland. Jessica’s background is as a news journalist and documentary maker. She was an international news producer and assistant editor of BBC Newsnight. She is an Emmy nominee for the prime-time TV science documentary Human Instinct.
Aurelien Mondon is a Professor of Politics at the University of Bath and co-convenor of the Reactionary Politics Research Network. His research focuses predominantly on the mainstreaming of reactionary politics through elite discourse. He is the author of The Mainstreaming of the Extreme Right in France and Australia: A Populist Hegemony? (2013) and co-author of Reactionary democracy: How racism and the populist far right became mainstream (2020) with Aaron Winter. He is the co-editor of After Charlie Hebdo: Terror, racism and free speech (2017) and The Ethics of Researching the Far Right (2024). His work has appeared in various mainstream and expert outlets around the world, including CNN, The Guardian, The Independent, Libération, Newsweek, Le Soir, Mediapart and Al Jazeera.
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