Between deliberation and misinformation

NB: This event is closed to #NORA corporate partners and their team members as well as to BI students.

In this two-part session we will take a societal and critical perspective on strategic communication. In the first part, we will explore the need of liberal democratic societies to allow for free and informed formation of public opinion. And we will identify the normative principles of communication that allow us to analyse and criticize potential societal-level shortcomings of communication in facilitating rational public opinion formation. This serves as a basis to analyse and understand the role that (strategic) communication plays within the democratic process. In the second part, we will then look at the role of strategic communication in the context of individual-level influence. Specifically, we will focus what makes people susceptible (or vulnerable) to false information? And what are the implications of such vulnerabilities to strategic communicators. 

About the speakers

Dr. Vilma Luoma-aho is professor of Corporate Communication and Vice Dean in charge of Education at School of Business & Economics, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland. Luoma-aho has published several books and articles in leading communication journals on digital stakeholders and new forms of influence, and serves on the board of trustees of Arthur W. Page Society (New York), an elite community of world's leading communicators. She was chosen communication professional of the year in 2014 in Finland, and served several years as the Chairman of the Board of ProCom (Communication professional association in Finland). Known for her engaging content, she teaches university and executive education programmes in Finland, Norway and Germany, and consults organizations across sectors on meeting the new expectations of digital stakeholders. In Finland, she chairs the social science division of MATINE under the Ministry of Defense, and studies the hijacking of authority communication. Her current project AIDEMOC funded by Finnish Research Council’s Strategic Research Funding focuses on misinformation and the malicious use of AI to harm democracy.

Dr. Alexander Buhmann is associate professor of communication in the Department of Communication and Culture at BI Norwegian Business School and Director of #NORA – The Nordic Alliance for Communication and Management, an international and cross-disciplinary research group focusing on topics at the intersection communication, digital technology, and management. In his research, Alexander focuses on questions of how new technologies (such as generative AI, digital and social media platforms, or augmented reality) affect interactions between organizations and their stakeholders, and how such technologies impede or enable the capacity for responsible and democratic governance. Alexander has authored over 70 research papers, chapters, and study reports. His work has been published in leading communication and management journals, such as New Media & Society, Technology in Society, the Journal of Business Ethics, The Information Society, Business Ethics Quarterly, Scientometrics, or the International Communication Gazette, among others.