Prof. Dr. Christiane Eilders, on the panel “Democracy under Siege” at the conference “Defending Democracy and Human Rights”, focused on the role of the media in polarization.
“This is about emotions, hatred and the like, however, the focus is completely different. I think wars and conflicts are very important topics for this conference because they can very easily disrupt democratic processes.”
Conflicts can divide societies into those that will be supporters and those that will be opponents of Ukraine, Israel, and the like… But conflicts in domestic politics should also be taken into account.
What is bad about opposing opinions is that, if there are distinctive and special opinions and very strong emotions, the conflict can further contribute to polarization. I want to say that the exchange of opinions often happens through the media, not only face to face, and that is why today I would like to focus on the specific role of social media.
What I want to emphasize is that the media were the ones who were suspected of deepening conflicts and some of them were worsening the situation in society, and that is alarming, because the media was previously seen as an infrastructure for democracy, because through them the opinion of the people was created, and the fact that this is no longer the case is already an alarming issue.
We have to interact, we have to compromise and find solutions. And this is also a way how to integrate the society, and without integration, there is no stable foundation of democratic societies, pointed out Prof. Dr.Eilders.
D. Tahiri
Camera: Atanas Petrovski/ Igor Chadinovski
Editing: Arian Mehmeti
Photo: Robert Atanasovski
CONFERENCE, FULL VIDEO, Streamed live on December 12, 2024:
https://youtube.com/live/1f2Eo1ZXEQ0
PHOTO ARCHIVES: #DefendingDemocracy, Panel 1: Democracy under Siege
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.994398716055531&type=3
#DefendingDemocracy, Panel 2: The Rise of Far-Right Nationalism
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.995019619326774&type=3
#DefendingDemocrcy Panel 3: Countering Authoritarianism
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.995771969251539&type=3
#DefendingDemocracy conference, Panel 4: Commitment to democracy
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.996548069173929&type=3
#DefendingDemocracy Conference (overall)
https://www.facebook.com/media/set?set=a.993726732789396&type=3
#DefendingDemocracy – workshop and meeting with the press
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.992924672869602&type=3
#DefendingDemocracy PRESS CONFERENCE
For more information on the Conference, please visit the special website DefendingDemocracy
