Conferences
Brindusa Armanca: Pinocchio’s Army. How We Lie to the People through Television?
On Sunday, 8th October 2017, from 11.00 a.m., the Black Box Hall of NTB shall host the conference on the topic Pinocchio’s Army. How We Lie to the People through Television? held by Brîndușa Armanca.
About the Conference
The controversies around „fake news” ignited by the presidential elections of Great Britain and the USA have sounded the alarm regarding the infringement of a fundamental right of the audience: the right to receive correct, updated and verified information. Numerous media studies have revealed the mechanisms through which mystified information can influence the outcome of elections or can distort the audience’s opinions and actions. The new technologies, modern platforms such as Google, Facebook, YouTube contribute to the rapid dissemination of „fake news” and render their circulation practically uncontrollable.
Surveys show that the Romanian audience gathers information in a percentage of over 80% from television, so this is the medium through which it can be contaminated. The countless „news” channels which appeared in our country are frequently channels of intoxication, disinformation, manipulation, and the favourite areas of distortion are politics, mundane events, business and internal news.
„Although Romanians seem to be aware of their exposure to fake news – 9 out of 10 claim that they happen to discover that a piece of news which they initially deemed true is fake, only half of them verify the truthfulness of information, even before sharing it with other people. Moreover, the majority continue to use the same channels on which they have discovered fake news, but their confidence in them decreases.”, an iSense Solutions study shows.
The conference focuses on the explanation of the phenomenon, on identifying the ”agents” of television manipulation through the presentation of notorious case studies. Brîndușa Armanca
About Brînduşa Armanca
Journalist and university professor, Brîndușa Armanca was part of the prestigious editorial offices from Radio Free Europe, Expres or Ziua and she led for several years the regional studio of the Romanian Television of Timişoara. From 2006 to 2012, she managed the Romanian Cultural Institute of Budapest. She is currently a university professor and edits the weekly press review column „Media culpa” in 22 magazine. Member of the Romanian Writers’ Guild and of numerous media organisations, such as International Communication Association or ECREA, AZIR etc., she is the author of several journalism tomes, like Regional Television in Romania (2002), Media culpa (2006), Learn to Win (2006), Recent History through Media. The Border-Crashers (2009, 2012), also translated into Hungarian in 2011, Dalnic. Untold Stories from Doja’s Village (versions in Romanian, English, Hungarian, 2016), communication books such as A Communication Guide for Journalists and PR (2002), or of literary history and literature like Crypto’s Message. Communication, Code, Magical Metaphor in the Modern Romanian Poetry (2005), Abolishing Dumbfounded Time (2016), Ending to the Book of Losers (2017). Her television movies were awarded at national festivals and international competitions, and her activity was rewarded with the Cultural Award of the Romanian Academy, as well as with the Distinction of the Hungarian Ministry of Culture for cultural diplomacy.
Translated by Simona Nichiteanu
