DCN Global participated in the 17th edition of the International Journalism Festival, making Perugia the journalism capital of the world.
From April 19 to 23, we walked through the beautiful streets of this Italian city to meet some 500 speakers, not counting journalists, academics and young communication students. We met among the 200 scheduled events.
This year, the focus was on artificial intelligence, which has become mainstream thanks to programs like Chat GPT. Indeed, the new frontiers of digital technology represent both a challenge and an opportunity for the world of communication.
The great protagonist of the event was Ukraine, whose war has been going on for more than a year. The organizers have collected both the testimony of the Independent Kiev, consolidated information space for those who look at the situation of the country, and the testimonies of the Associated Press team that documented the devastating siege of Mariupol. Their rigorous work made it possible to understand the brutality of the ongoing Russian invasion.
But Ukraine is also the country where AI has had the opportunity to show its great potential. Francesca Bosco of the Cyber Institute for Peace and Carola Frediani of Guerre di Rete have exposed the concept of cyberwar and its implications in mass culture. In addition, thanks to data collected by organizations such as the Centre for Information Resilience and CORRECTIV, open source data was used last year to combat Russian propaganda and map international sanctions.
The many wars roiling the world today have also brought back the issue of visa privileges for exiled editorial offices, such as Meduza, Russia's largest independent media organization, for the Kremlin's "foreign agent" since April 2021.
Abuses and threats do not stop in conflict zones. All too often, as the testimonies of Roberto Saviano, Matthew Caruana Galizia and Nobel laureate Maria Ressa have shown, journalists are victims of online and offline abuse. Women, in particular, suffered the most online attacks in 2022, in addition to judicial persecution and intimidation.
The impact of AI and machine learning on journalism, thanks to the lively debate on the best practices currently implemented, represents the future challenge in the balance of power between digital giants, traditional press and governments.
