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On 27 April, Dr. Cornelius Puschmann, Senior Researcher, Hans-Bredow-Institut für Medienforschung, Hamburg, will visit Tallinn University to give a lecture about How malleable is public opinion? On the relevance of social media in an era of online misinformation and hate speech. 

The lecture is open to everyone and takes place from 12.15 to 13:45 in room S-333. The visit takes place in cooperation with Goethe-Institut, DAAD and Baltisch-Deutsches Hochschulkontor.

Social media are an increasingly important source of news for European citizens, in particular among younger internet users. Recent debates around fake news and online hate speech have emphasized the role of intermediaries such as Facebook and Twitter in the digital information ecosystem, culminating in calls for a stronger regulation of social media platforms. While in public discourse the danger that misinformation poses for democracy is widely discussed, empirical evidence on its influence is currently limited. My talk will focus on the question of what role social and traditional media play in opinion formation and how different types of threats can to be evaluated.

The Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research is a publicly funded research institute that focuses on the study of mediated public communication. Its research encompasses both broadcast and digital communication from an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective.