Until recently, the Nordic region has had a reputation for successfully resisting threats from disinformation, but recently, growing concern about the rise of populist movements, increased security threats, AI-generated deepfakes, and the spread of hybrid warfare, have contributed to the Nordic countries not being immune to these challenges.
Olof Sundin and Tereza Østbø Kuldova will provide insight into how well prepared Nordic societies are for the challenges posed by current and future disinformation threats (in a broad sense). They are part of the Nordic Disinformation Resilience Network, interested in understanding the historical, social, and regional factors that shape the region's resilience and how these can form the basis for better governance for preparedness and crisis management.
Agenda
- 14.00 – 14.10: Welcome and introduction to the Nordic Disinformation Resilience Network (Gudrun Rudningen)
- 14.10 – 14.50 : Nordics in Pursuit of the Best Defense Against Hybrid Threats and Disinformation (Tereza Østbø Kuldova)
- 14.50 – 15.35: The digital infrastructure and the increasing volatility of public knowledge (Olof Sundin)
- 15.30 – 16.00: Q&A
About the presenters
Olof Sundin (kultur.lu.se) is Professor of Information Studies at Lund University. His research focusses on the contemporary configuration and control of digital information and its social impact. In particular, he has studied search engines and their role in everyday life and media and information literacy as forms of infrastructural meaning-making. He is currently PI for “ReSEARCH: Researching the Transforming Landscape of Information Seeking” (Swedish Research Council) and “Who is the Expert? Generative AI as a Site for Negotiating Expertise, Evidence and Trust in Datafied Society” (Crafoord).
He is also a part of NORDREN: The Nordic Disinformation Resilience Network (funded by Nordforsk) and a researcher in “Digital Vulnerability in the Automated Welfare State: Infrastructures, Citizen Perspectives, and Values” (funded by the Swedish Research Council).
Tereza Østbø Kuldova is Research Director and Research Professor at the Work Research Institute, OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University, and a social anthropologist. She is the author of, among others, Compliance-Industrial Complex: The Operating System of a Pre-Crime Society (Palgrave, 2022), How Outlaws Win Friends and Influence People (Palgrave, 2019), Luxury Indian Fashion: A Social Critique (Bloomsbury, 2016), and co-author of Luxury and Corruption: Challenging the Anti-Corruption Consensus (Bristol University Press, 2024), in addition to many edited volumes and journal articles. She has written extensively on topics ranging from fashion, design, intellectual property rights, philanthropy, Indian elites to outlaw motorcycle clubs, subcultures, organized crime, corruption, and anti-corruption, but also regulation and compliance.
Currently, she is working on subjects related to national security and preparedness in Norway.
She is the founder and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Extreme Anthropology and runs the Algorithmic Governance Research Network.
More about the hosts
Read more about the research group Media Practice
Read more about the Labour and Democracy hub at the Work Research Institute, OsloMet
