Center for Media at Risk Launch Symposium
April 19 – 21, 2018
“What is Media at Risk?” is a cross-disciplinary conference bringing together media practitioners, media scholars, and media assist organizations to define what “media at risk” means globally in circumstances of political intimidation and what can be done to resist it.
Given the proliferating nature of creeping authoritarianism around the world, these efforts will help highlight Penn’s mission to explain more fully what political intimidation in the media – in documentary, journalism, entertainment, and the digital environment – looks like worldwide.
Thursday, April 19
Location: Perry World House
6:00pm: OPENING REMARKS + RECEPTION
Soraya Chemaly, Who Defines Risk and Why It Matters
Friday, April 20
Location: Annenberg School for Communication
9:15am: BREAKFAST
9:45-10:00am: WELCOME + INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
Michael X. Delli Carpini
Barbie Zelizer
10:00am-12:00pm: DIGITAL
Bethany Wiggin (moderator)
Maria Ressa – Exponential Lies (and How to Fight Them)
Samuel Sinyangwe – The Challenges and Possibilities of Digital Activism
Amy Siskind – Writing History in the Age of Social Media
Zeynep Tufekci – The New Censorship: If Everything is Potentially Fake, What Role for Journalism?
12:00-1:00pm: LUNCH
1:00-3:00pm: ENTERTAINMENT
Jim English (moderator)
Marjorie David – How Media Consolidation and Net Neutrality Foster Censorship in the Entertainment Industry
Jeffrey Jones – Who’s Joking? Late Night Comedy’s Cover Up
Maureen Ryan – Spin Cycle: The Powerful Forces Brought to Bear on the Entertainment Reporting Process
Nancy Wang Yuen – The Curious Case of Hollywood and “Freedom of Speech”
BREAK
3:15-5:15pm: DOCUMENTARY
John Jackson (moderator)
John Caldwell – Documentaries in Risk-Delegation Systems
Sam Gregory – Diversifying ‘Media’ at Risk: Challenges for Eyewitnesses, Media Activists and Human Rights Media Makers
Simon Kilmurry – Dangerous Docs: Filmmakers Under Attack
Bryce Renninger – Risk and Short Films in an Attention Economy
5:15-7:00pm: RECEPTION
Saturday, April 21
BREAKFAST
10:00am-12:00pm: JOURNALISM
Michael X. Delli Carpini (moderator)
Arzu Geybulla – No Longer Just a Risk, But an Everyday Reality: Stories from Azerbaijan
Parker Higgins – Protecting Journalists in the Age of Trump
Jay Rosen – The Campaign to Discredit the Press
Silvio Waisbord – Who Cares? When Society Fails to Safeguard Journalists at Risk
12:00pm – 2:00pm: LUNCH + CLOSING REMARKS
Barbie Zelizer
INTERLOCUTORS: Ra’anan Alexandrowicz / Sarah Banet-Weiser / Nick Benequista / Ruth Ben-Ghiat / Charlie Beckett / Caty Borum Chattoo / Aymar Jean Christian / Susan Douglas / Jonathan Gray / Daniel Grinberg / Lisa Henderson / Tom Herman / Risto Kunelius / Judith Matloff / John Nerone / Sylvia Ryerson / Ivan Sigal / Sky Sitney / Nikki Usher / Todd Wolfson …and more
STUDENT COMMITTEE: Megan Genovese / Jennifer Henrichsen / Muira McCammon / Hanna Morris / Aaron Shaprio