Stratcom Summit in Istanbul focuses on media in post-truth era

ISTANBUL

An international summit in Türkiye’s largest city Istanbul Friday focused on technology, social media, and how news spreads in the post-truth era.

Among the participants is the Stratcom Summit 2022 panel “Media in the Post-Truth Age" was Saadet Oruc, an advisor to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who thanked Türkiye's Communications Director Fahrettin Altun and his team “for organizing this important summit.”

Journalist-turned-political advisor Oruc said that the traditional media can play a crucial role against the parallel universe of post-truth “just by fact-checking or defending the truth.”

With the help of modern technology, a social media user “can just create his own, let's say, media,” she explained. “One can create his own truth because, for example, a social media user sits at home and tweets something or just shares his view.”

Pointing to the “distance” between the source of the information and reality, Oruc highlighted the importance of the work of traditional journalists.

Showing a notorious recent cover of French satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaine for the Qatar World Cup showing Qatari footballers as terrorists with guns, she called this “an example of the Islamophobic side of Western media.”

She also criticized the terminology in numerous headlines on last month’s terrorist attack in Istanbul and how they mischaracterized the Kurds and the terrorist group PKK.

“The PKK is a terrorist group but Kurds are part of Türkiye and they enjoy their rights in this country,” she said.

Other speakers at the panel included Frank Melloul, the CEO of the Israeli i24news, Nadav Eyal, senior columnist for Israeli daily Yediot Achronot, Borzou Daragahi of Britain’s Independent, and Adesewa Josh of English-language news channel TRT World.

In an earlier panel “How to Make Truth Louder in World Politics,” panelists discussed how societies and institutions fight disinformation and black propaganda.

Among the speakers were Caitlin Chin, a fellow at Washington-based CSIS Strategic Technologies; Radu Magdin, former communication advisor to the Romanian prime minister; Fahd Hussain, special assistant to the prime minister of Pakistan on public policy and strategic communication; and Andrii Shapovalov, the head of Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) under the National Security Council.

Participants at the two-day summit are addressing global topics in the field of strategic communication. Gathered under the theme of "Strategic Communication in the Age of Uncertainty," the platform features 52 speakers from more than 24 countries and an audience of over 3,000.