MediaFutures Seminar: Media entertainment experiences among youth on global platforms. Marika Lüders, Professor at the University of Oslo
2022-05-13 12:00 - 13:00 (Europe/Oslo)
Marika Lüders, Professor at the University of Oslo, will give a seminar on 13 May, at 12:00.
TITLE: Media entertainment experiences among youth on global platformsWHEN: Friday 13 May, 12:00-13:00WHERE: Zoom –
https://uib.zoom.us/j/68002953641?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 680 0295 3641

Password: [REDACTED]

ABSTRACT:
The media and platforms taken for granted by those born since the turn of the millennium are often interpreted as causing unprecedented competition for national and legacy players in the field of media entertainment. Accordingly, notions such as “lost generation” signal how legacy media perceive re-engagement with youth audiences as core to their future existence. In this talk I will first address how the notion of youth as a lost generation serves a strategic function in the media entertainment sector by legitimating actions. I will next report from how we study teens’ media entertainment experiences in the research project “Global Natives? Serving young audiences on global platforms”. By enquiring the media entertainment experiences of youth as constituted by content produced by legacy media and what is often termed “social media entertainment”, we hope to advance knowledge on youth as a media generation.
BIO:
Marika Lüders is a Professor at the Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo. She has almost 20 years of experience in researching user/audience experiences, social media, global platforms, and the intersections of the material and experiential levels of digital technologies. Lüders is currently the project leader of the research project “Global Natives? Serving young audiences on global platforms” (2021-2025).

Wolftech & MediaFutures Joint Seminar: Human Interaction and Collaboration with Machine Learning Models. Hendrik Strobelt, IBM Research / MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab
2022-05-20 15:00 - 16:00
Hendrik Strobelt, the Explainability Lead at the MIT-IBM Watson AI lab, will give a seminar on 20 May, at 15:00.
TITLE: Human Interaction and Collaboration with Machine Learning models
WHEN: Friday 20 May, 15:00-16:00WHERE: Zoom:
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZErdeiurz0tGtGEcOjhfEQBEwTKqcblgjju
Meeting ID:

Password:

[REDACTED]
With the increasing adoption of machine learning models across domains, we have to think about the human role when interacting with these models. In the last years, my collaborators and I have created a series of tools that utilize visualization and visual user interaction to help investigate behavior of machine learning models (for NLP and CV) and that might help creating algorithms to detect fake text. I will present a selection of these scientific tools that makes humans play and then understand.
BIO:
Hendrik Strobelt is the Explainability Lead at the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, Research Scientist at IBM Research, and currently professor at University of Konstanz. His recent research is on visualization for and human collaboration with AI models to foster explainability and intuition. His work involves NLP models and generative models while he is advocating to utilize a mix of data modalities to solve real-world problems. His research is applied to tasks in machine learning, in NLP, in the biomedical domain, and in chemistry. Hendrik joined IBM in 2017 after postdoctoral positions at Harvard SEAS and NYU Tandon. He received a Ph.D. (Dr. rer. nat.) from the University of Konstanz in computer science (Visualization) and holds an MSc (Diplom) in computer science from TU Dresden. His work has been published at venues like IEEE VIS, ICLR, ACM Siggraph, ACL, NeurIPS, ICCV, PNAS, Nature BME, or Science Advances. He received multiple best paper/honorable mention awards at EuroVis, BioVis, VAST, ACL Demo, or NeurIPS demo. He received the Lohrmann medal from TU Dresden as the highest student honor. Hendrik has served in program committees and organization committees for IEEE VIS, BioVis, EuroVis. He served on organization committees for IEEE VIS, VISxAI, ICLR, ICML, NeurIPS. Hendrik is visiting researcher at MIT CSAIL. (more: https://hendrik.strobelt.com)

MediaFutures WP1 DIGSSCORE-Workshop
2022-06-15 10:00 - 13:00
WP1 DIGSSCORE-Workshop
Open for all MediaFutures Partners. The first part will be in English, and the second part will be in Norwegian/Scandinavian.
WHERE: Zoom – https://uib.zoom.us/j/65597060274?pwd=[REDACTED]

Part 1 (10:00 – 11:00) Introduction to DIGSSCORE
10:00-10:05: Welcome
10:05-10:45: Introduction to DIGSSCORE by Erik Knudsen: What is it and what can MediaFutures partners use it for? (20 minutes presentation and 20 minutes for questions)
10:45-11:00 Coffee break
Part 2 (11:00-13:00) WP1 workshop in Scandinavian (with WP1 partners)
11:00-11:15: Introduction to Schibsted’s research interests on hard-to-reach audiences and constructive journalism (10 minutes presentation and 5 minutes for questions)
11:15-11:30: Introduction to NRK’s research interests on constructive journalism (10 minutes presentation and 5 minutes for questions).
11:30-11:45: Discussing and finding overlapping interests for research
11:45-12:00 Coffee break
12:00-12:15: Opportunities for researching constructive journalism and hard-to-reach audiences using DIGSSCORE.
12:15-12:45: Designing the study
12:45-13:00: Summing up and the road ahead

MediaFutures Seminar: Augment the Vision: To Help Users Deal with Different Domain Tasks. PhD Candidate, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden.
2022-06-15 12:00 - 13:00
Yuchong Zhang, PhD candidate at the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, will give a seminar on 15 June, at 12:00.
TITLE: Augment the Vision: To Help Users Deal with Different Domain TasksWHEN: Wednesday 15 June, 12:00-13:00WHERE: MediaFutures

ABSTRACT:
One of the cutting-edge techniques—augmented reality (AR) (a variation of virtual reality (VR)), in which virtual objects are superimposed in the real world–has been demonstrated and applied in numerous fields due to its capability of providing interactive interfaces of visualized digital content. Moreover, AR can provide functional tools that support users undertaking domain-related tasks, especially facilitating them in data visualization and interaction because of its ability to jointly augment the physical space and the user’s perception. How to fully use the advantages of AR technique, especially the items which augment human vision to help users with different domain tasks’ perform is the central part of my PhD research.
BIO:
Yuchong Zhang is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. His research interests include augmented reality, interactive visualization and human-centred design. He received his MSc. degree from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore in 2017.

MediaFutures Seminar: Mind the Gaps and Normal Accidents with Dirk Hovy. Associate Professor, Bocconi University in Milan, Italy.
2022-06-16 14:00 - 15:00
Dirk Hovy, Associate Professor of computer science at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy, will give a seminar on 16 June, at 14:00.
TITLE: Mind the Gaps and Normal AccidentsWHEN: Thursday 16 June, 14:00-15:00WHERE: Zoom – https://uio.zoom.us/j/61874196241?pwd=[REDACTED]

Meeting ID: 618 7419 6241

Password: [REDACTED]

ABSTRACT:
NLP is now stable enough to be used in production systems, and will soon become even more pervasive. However, even today’s systems are already highly complex and unpredictable. As they become more ubiquitous, different algorithms will interact with each other directly leading to tightly coupled systems whose capacity to cause harm we will be unable to predict. In his book Normal Accidents, the sociologist Charles Perrow proposed a framework to analyze technologies and their risks according to their complexity and the interdependence of their components. He showed that accidents were nigh on unavoidable due to those two features. We apply Perrow’s framework to NLP to assess its potential risks. We argue that under the current paradigm, “normal accidents” are built into the system, and that it is only a matter of time before they emerge. Some issues in current NLP practice that aid this development are:
– the early adoption of methods without sufficient understanding or analysis;
– the preference for computational methods regardless of risks associated with their limitations;
– the dangers of unexplainable methods.
If these issues are not addressed, we risk a loss of reproducibility, reputability, and subsequently public trust in our field. However, these factors can help us plan better for making our systems safer and more reliable.
BIO:
Dirk Hovy is associate professor of computer science at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. Before that, he was faculty and a postdoc in Copenhagen, got a PhD from USC, and a linguistics masters in Germany. He is interested in the interaction between language, society, and machine learning, or what language can tell us about society, and what computers can tell us about language. He has authored over 70 articles on these topics, including 3 best paper awards. He has organized one conference and several workshops (on abusive language, ethics in NLP, and computational social science). Dirk recently received an ERC Starting Grant for a project on demographic factors and bias in NLP. Outside of work, Dirk enjoys cooking, running, and leather-crafting. For updated information, see https://www.dirkhovy.com

MediaFutures Seminar: How Newspapers Use Audience Analytics and Metrics with Thomas Husken, Data Analyst at Bergens Tidende
2022-09-09 12:00 - 13:00 | MediaFutures, Media Futures HQ, 3rd floor, Bergen, 5008
Thomas Husken, Data Analyst at Bergens Tidende, will give a seminar on 9 September, at 12:00.
TITLE: How newspapers use audience analytics and metrics
WHEN: Friday 9 September, 12:00-13:00WHERE: MediaFutures

In this workshop, Thomas Husken, data scientist in Bergens Tidende (BT), will talk about the usage of news audience data, various metrics, and analytics inside a news organization. Thomas is part of BT data analytics department, working on frontpage optimization, creation and maintenance of various analytical dashboards, and many other analytical tasks. Newsrooms around the world have become centered around dashboards, overloaded with metrics, and news work is growingly data-driven. Ongoing research is revealing how analytics and metrics influences journalism culture, work routines, news values, news selection, among other. However, beyond gaining knowledge about effects on work process which are reflected in content that consumers of media get, we need to look deeper into technical insides of audience analytics and metrics, or infrastructures for utilization of data about audience news use. In that respect, Thomas Husken will provide unique insights into the audience analytics and metrics in BT as one of the oldest and the largest newspapers (measured by circulation) in Norway.
The workshop is primarily aimed at PhD and Postodoctoral researchers, but also at others interested in various technological aspects of media work.

Program:
Short introduction – Ana Milojevic (Postdoc Fellow, MediaFutures)
How newspapers use analytics and metrics – Thomas Husken (Data Scientist, BT)
Questions and answers

Register your interest in workshop by sending e-mail to Ana Milojevic.

MediaFutures Seminar: Building Knowledge Graphs with Media Content and Application for Tackling Misinformation with Raphael Troncy, Associate Professor at EURECOM
2022-09-20 10:00 - 11:00 | MediaFutures, Media Futures HQ, 3rd floor, Bergen, 5008
Raphael Troncy, Associate Professor at EURECOM, will give a seminar on 20 September, at 10:00.
TITLE: Building Knowledge Graphs with Media Content and Application for Tackling Misinformation
WHEN: Tuesday 20 September, 10:00-11:00WHERE: MCB Store læringsrom, Læringslab 3rd floor. / ZOOM:
https://uib.zoom.us/j/67861782423?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 678 6178 2423
Password: [REDACTED]

ABSTRACT:
The sheer volume of multimedia content created every day across the many disparate distribution channels keeps challenging any traditional content management system. Routine tasks such as archiving, editing, content organization and retrieval by multimedia creators become prohibitively costly. On the user side, the amount of multimedia content pumped daily can be simply overwhelming and the need for shorter and more personalized content has never been more pronounced. Recommending, enriching and summarizing content can help to capitalize on users’ engagement and generate their interactions.In this talk, I will first present several Knowledge Graphs developed with medias being radio and TV programs broadcaster in Europe, news items published by a news agency or even social media posts shared on Twitter or Facebook. Next, I will present a number of tools that contribute to automatic multimedia understanding by computers, ranging from extracting topics using common sense knowledge or language models to recognizing recurring people in images. I will show how difficult it is for computers to decompose content into meaningful segments. I will show how to extract highlights from media content, both for narrative-focused summarization and for maximising memorability and I will conclude with our current efforts aiming at tackling misinformation.
BIO:
Raphael Troncy is an Associate Professor at the Data Science Department of EURECOM. He received his PhD from Grenoble University (France) in 2004 and held research positions at INA (France), CNR (Italy) and CWI (The Netherlands). He published more than 250 scientific papers in various journals, top tier conferences and associated workshops and held key organisational roles in multiple world-leading conferences. He was the General Chair of The Web Conference in 2022. He is an expert in knowledge engineering, information extraction and recommender systems. He is the principla investigator of many national and european projects where semantic technologies and information extraction are used together to build knowledge graphs, exploratory search engines and recommender systems.

MediaFutures Seminar: Media Accessibility: Current Solutions and Future Challenges with Pilar Orero, Professor from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
2022-10-04 13:00 - 14:00 | MediaFutures, Media Futures HQ, 3rd floor, Bergen, 5008
Pilar Orero, Professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain), will give a seminar on 4 October, at 13:00.
TITLE: MedIa Accessibility: Current Solutions and Future Challenges
WHEN: Tuesday 4 October, 13:00-14:00. There will be a lunch served at 12:30.
WHERE: MediaFutures & Online
Zoom Meetinghttps://uib.zoom.us/j/64942261686?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 649 4226 1686Password: [REDACTED]
ABSTRACT:
The presentation will start describing the current situation of media accessibility, which is at an unprecedented moment for accessibility. The EU legal framework has forced national transpositions with concrete requirements. The European Accessibility Centre will open next year, and funding for research by EC is at all times high. Accessibility has moved from being an object of study, as a silo, to a horizontal prerequisite in any call where humans are involved. This presentation will inform of existing funded solutions and identify possible challenges that may need funding.
BIO:
Professor Pilar Orero, PhD (UMIST, UK) works at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain) in the TransMedia Catalonia Lab. She has written and edited many books, near 100 academic papers and almost the same number of book chapters –all on Media Accessibility. Leader and participant on numerous EU funded research projects focusing on media accessibility. She works in standardisation and participates in the UN ITU IRG-AVA – Intersector Rapporteur Group Audiovisual Media Accessibility, ISO and ANEC. She has been working on Immersive Accessibility for the past 4 years first in a project called ImAc, which results are now further developed in TRACTION, MEDIAVERSE, MILE, and has just started to work on green accessibility in GREENSCENT. She leads the EU network LEADME on Media Accessibility.
For more info please go to https://gent.uab.cat/pilarorero

MediaFutures Seminar: Information Seeking Is Much More Than Searching with Alan Smeaton, Professor of Computing at the Dublin City University
2023-01-10 15:15 - 16:15
Alan Smeaton, a Professor of Computing at the Dublin City University, will give a seminar on January 10th.
TITLE: Information seeking is much more than searching
WHEN: 10 Januar, 15:15-16:15
WHERE: MediaFutures & Zoom:
Link: https://uib.zoom.us/j/69616776839?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 696 1677 6839
Password: [REDACTED]
ABSTRACT:

Information seeking is an essential, daily activity that billions of us pursue as part of our work and leisure activities. Information seeking is a journey, a conversation between a searcher and an information repository which can have many final destinations, or none. Searching is one component of information seeking and search or more broadly information retrieval, in its early years has had a focus on known item search or searching around a broad topic. This has been supported and nurtured by our benchmarking activities like TREC, TRECVid, CLEF, FIRE and others and the systems we have developed and that we use in our essential daily information seeking activities reflect this. In this presentation I reflect on the broader information seeing landscape and on how a twist of good (or bad) timing, has left us with the search tools we use but which do not necessarily deliver the best support for our information seeking. This broader perspective will then allow us to contextualise the roles that various forms of media search can play in our information seeking journeys. Towards the end of the talk I will cover generative media where instead of searching for media, we create it.
BIO:
Alan Smeaton is Professor of Computing at Dublin City University where he has previously been Head of School and Dean of Faculty. He is an IEEE Fellow, Principal Fellow of Advance HE and an elected member of the Royal Irish Academy. He is the 2022 winner of the ACM SIGMM Technical Achievement Award for contributions to multimedia computing. Alan’s interests are in human memory and how we forget and remember some things and not others and this involves the use of machine learning and data analytics, and the applications of text, image, and video analysis in areas like learning analytics, personal sensing, and lifelogging.

MediaFutures Seminar: Designing for Collaborative Video Editing with Pavel Okopnyi, PhD Candidate at the University of Bergen
2023-01-18 14:15 - 15:15
Pavel Okopnyi, a PhD Candidate at the University of Bergen, will give a seminar on January 18th.
TITLE: Designing for Collaborative Video Editing
WHEN: 18 Januar, 14:15 – 15:15
WHERE: MediaFutures & Zoom:
https://uib.zoom.us/j/69273144707?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 692 7314 4707
Password: [REDACTED]

ABSTRACT:

The seminar will explore the design space of collaborative video editing through a series of design workshops with video editors. Collaborative video editing can be supported by adding awareness features or other well-known collaborative features found in existing software and introducing new features designed specifically for video editing software. We identify different design concepts that illustrate how such collaborative features can be included in non-linear video editing software and discusses the challenges of introducing such features. Some design concepts are explicitly inspired by existing collaborative tools. However, we suggest that introducing such features might not be straightforward. In other cases, alternative abstract representations of time-based media might be necessary to support collaborative video editing.
BIO:
Pavel Okopnyi is a PhD Candidate at the University of Bergen. His PhD thesis is focused on collaborative aspects of video production workflows. He has master’s degrees in Sociology and Human-Computer Interaction. Pavel’s interests include media production tools, education, software engineering, and video games.

MediaFutures Seminar: Public expectations of transparency and accountability in citizens’ councils on data-driven media personalisation: Findings and methodological reflections with Ranjana Das, Professor at the University of Surrey
2023-01-26 12:00 - 13:00
Ranjana Das, Professor at the University of Surrey and currently visiting Erasmus fellow at the University of Bergen, will give a seminar on January 26th.
TITLE: Public expectations of transparency and accountability in citizens’ councils on data-driven media personalisation: Findings and methodological reflections
WHEN: 26 Januar, 12:00 – 13:00
WHERE: MediaFutures
ABSTRACT:

This talk presents findings and reflections across a set of three journal papers which emerged from a rigorous, three-wave series of qualitative research into public expectations of data-driven media technologies, conducted across locations in England, by a team bringing together sociology, engineering and media practice. Located within the contexts of the AI4ME project, through a range of carefully chosen scenarios and deliberations around the risks and benefits afforded by data-driven media personalisation technologies, we paid close attention to citizens’ voices, as our multi-disciplinary team sought to engage the public on what ‘good’ might look like in the context of media personalisation. We paid particular attention to risks and opportunities, examining practical use-cases and scenarios, and our three-wave councils culminated in citizens producing recommendations for practice and policy. In this talk, I will focus on citizens’ ethical assessment, critique and improvements proposed on media personalisation methods in relation to benefits, fairness, safety, transparency and accountability, particularly within the broader contexts of their expectations around algorithms and algorithmic systems. I will conclude with some reflections on our citizens council methodology, particularly the use of “vignettes” as scenarios as a method of data collection in user-centric algorithm studies, in terms of their potential in inviting users’ contextual experiences of algorithms but also enabling more normative reflections on what “good” looks like in contemporary datafied societies.
Note: The talk draws upon three journal papers from the team under review currently, and results presented should not be circulated further.
BIO:
Ranjana Das is Professor in Media and Communication, in the Department of Sociology, at the University of Surrey. Her research interests span families, parenting and parenthood, mental health, digital technologies and media audiences and users. Her upcoming book Anticipating algorithms: Algorithmic literacies of datafied parenthood will be published by Rowman & Littlefield. Link to project website: https://ai4me.surrey.ac.uk/
More information on the speaker: https://www.surrey.ac.uk/people/ranjana-das

The seminar is arranged by WP1 Understanding media experiences in SFI MediaFutures. At the seminar we will serve a light lunch on a first come first served-basis.

Seminar UiB AI: ChatGPT – trussel eller mulighet i forskning og utdanning?
2023-02-03 10:00 - 12:00
Chatboten ChatGPT har vært mye omtalt i media den siste tiden og skapt debatt blant forskere og undervisere. Hvilke potensiale har avanserte chatboter som ChatGPT, og hvilke implikasjoner kan det ha for vår måte å forske, undervise og lære på?
I årets første UiB AI seminar setter vi søkelyset på et aktuelt tema der verktøy basert på kunstig intelligens kan ha betydning for forskning og utdanning. Kunstig intelligens og maskinlæring har bragt store fremskritt innenfor vitenskapelige metoder og resultater, og noe av dette har vært tema under seminarene til UiB AI i 2022. Det nye med ChatGPT og lignende verktøy er at de har blitt veldig gode til å kommunisere på menneskelige språk og at de er gratis tilgjengelig for alle.
Deltakelse i seminaret er gratis og det blir servert lunsj. Påmelding innen 31. januar.
Program:
Velkommen
Pinar Heggernes, professor, prorektor og leder for UiB AI
Hva er ChatGPT og hvordan fungerer det og lignende verktøy?
Samia Touileb, forsker ved MediaFutures: Research Centre for Responsible Media Technology & Innovation, UiB
ChatGPT kan mange språk men kjenner ikke mange kulturer
Jill Rettberg, professor I digital kultur og leder av ERC-prosjektet Machine Vision in Everyday Life, UiB
Hva kan slike AI-verkyøy bety for læring, tilbakemelding og vurdering?
Arild Raaheim, professor i pedagogikk, UiB
Hvilke implikasjoner kan AI-verktøy som ChatGPT og Elicit.org ha for forskning?
Barbara Wasson, professor og leder for Centre for the Science of Learning & Technology (SLATE), UiB
Panelsamtale: ChatGPT – trussel eller mulighet i forskning og utdanning?
Eirik Vassenden, professor i nordisk litteratur, UiBDavid Grellscheid, førsteamanuensis i informatikk, UiBSamia TouilebJill RettbergArild RaaheimBarbara Wasson
Moderator: Pinar Heggernes

Innovation workshop with Vestlandets Innovasjonsselskap (VIS)
2023-02-07 09:00 - 13:00
MediaFutures and VIS would like to invite you to an innovation workshop taking place at MediaFutures on February the 7th.
Vestlandets Innovasjonsselskap (VIS) is a Technology Transfer Office (TTO) established in 2004 and owned by the University of Bergen, Haukeland University Hospital, the Institute of Marine Research, Siva, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, and NHH Norwegian Business School.
The goal of the workshop is to raise awareness of the value of intellectual property (IP) which is created through research, as well as management of rights in collaboration with industry partners.
The workshop is targeted at PhDs, PostDocs, researchers, Professors and industry partners who are curious about the process of bringing an idea/ a prototype to market, and who want to learn more about IP-rights.
Themes and topics for the workshop:

1. The commercialization process

Research-driven innovation (TTO)
Industry-driven innovation
Ability and reputation
Research collaboration with industrial partner

2. IP rights

IP and research at UiB
Strategies and management of IP

3. Software and IPR

Patenting – requirements and prerequisites
Other protection strategies

4. Case discussions / group work
Please see the attached preliminary program for more details.
The workshop will be held at MediaFutures 7th February from 09:15-12:00, followed by a lunch for all participants.
If you would like to participate, please sign up by sending an e-mail to Ola Roth Johnsen, ola.johnsen@uib.no, or Knut Risnes, knut.risnes@uib.no.

MediaFutures Seminar: Digital backbones: Data streams in the digital infrastructure and consequences for the media industries with Helle Sjøvaag and Raul Ferrer Conill from the University of Stavanger
2023-02-14 12:00 - 13:00
Helle Sjøvaag and Raul Ferrer Conill from the University of Stavanger will give a seminar on February 14th.
TITLE: Digital backbones: Data streams in the digital infrastructure and consequences for the media industries
WHEN: 14 February, 12:00 – 13:00
WHERE: MediaFutures & ZOOM:
https://uib.zoom.us/j/63852177471?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 638 5217 7471
Password: [REDACTED]

ABSTRACT:

Digital infrastructures consist of backbone structures comprising Internet Exchange Points, Content Delivery Networks, Data Centers, and subsea fiber cables. Contrary to access structures (typically broadband), these structures are not regulated beyond competition law. As the media industries grow more and more reliant on these structures, particularly for content streaming, the ownership, regulation, and data streams of the internet’s backbone remain serious blind spots in media infrastructure research. Helle Sjøvaag has spent the last year mapping these infrastructures for Norway. In this presentation, Sjøvaag will present her insights into these backbone structures, including their ownership and regulation, and discuss what the shifting ecology of the internet backbones means for media industries in Norway.In this talk, Helle Sjøvaag together with Raul Ferrer Conill, will present ongoing work from the project The datafication of communicative power: Towards an independent media policy for Norway’s digital infrastructures, funded by the Research Council of Norway.
Link to the project: https://www.uis.no/en/research/norways-digital-infrastructures
BIO:
Helle Sjøvaag is Professor of Journalism at the Department of Media and Social Sciences at the University of Stavanger.
Raul Ferrer Conill is Associate Professor at the Department of Media and Social Sciences at the University of Stavanger.

Cutting-edge AI: Large Language Models
2023-02-21 08:00 - 13:00
MediaFutures researchers Samia Touileb and Lilja Øvrelid will partake in a series event “Cutting-Edge AI” organized by the Norwegian Artificial Intelligence Research Consortium (NORA).
The event concerns Large Language Models such as ChatGPT; the technology, its implication on society and the ethical aspect, and will take place on February 21st at Domus Bibliotheca, Oslo.
For more information visit: https://www.nora.ai/events/cutting-edge-ai-large-language-models.html

Visual storyteller or brander
2023-03-24 12:00
En presentasjon om to måter for hvordan redaksjonelle miljøer kan bruke tredjepartsplattformer for å nå unge mennesker med kvalitetsjournalistikk og mulige utfall for disse veivalgene. Presentasjonen bygger på Peder Haugfos’ masteroppgave ved NTNU/TU Berlin, og er basert på intervjuer og innholdsanalyse av NRK P3 og VGs avdeling Z. Peder Haugfos er nå prosjektleder ved Media City Bergen.
Det vil bli servert en lett lunsj.
Sted: MediaFutures og Zoom: https://uib.zoom.us/j/63972035820?pwd=[REDACTED]

A presentation about two ways in which editorial environments can use third-party platforms to reach young people with quality journalism, and about possible outcomes of these choices. Peder’s talk builds on his master thesis founded on interviews and content analysis of the NRK P3’s and VG‘s Z departments.
Peder Haugfos is now a project manager at Media City Bergen.
There will be served a light lunch.

Place and date: MediaFutures and Zoom, 24 March @12:00.

MediaFutures Seminar: Computing Biases in Recommender Systems with Marko Tkalčič, University of Primorska
2023-04-14 13:30 - 14:15
Marko Tkalčič from the University of Primorska in Koper, Slovenia will give a seminar on April 14th.
TITLE: Computational Psychology in Recommender Systems
WHEN: 14 April, 13:30 – 14:1

ABSTRACT:

Recommender systems are systems that help users in decision-making situations where there is an abundance of choices. We can find them in our everyday lives, for example in online shops. State-of-the-art research in recommender systems has shown the benefits of behavioural modeling. Behavioural modeling means that we use past ratings, purchases, clicks etc. to model the user preferences. However, behavioural modeling is not able to capture certain aspects of the user preferences. Behavioral modeling can amplify existing biases in datasets. In this talk I will show how the usage of complementary research in computational psychology, such as detection of personality and emotions, can help recommender systems to mitigate both data/algorithm biases and cognitive biases.
BIO:
Marko Tkalčič is associate professor at the Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Information Technologies (FAMNIT) at the University of Primorska in Koper, Slovenia. He aims at improving personalized services (e.g. recommender systems) through the usage of psychological models in personalization algorithms. To achieve this, he uses diverse research methodologies, including data mining, machine learning, and user studies. He is editorial board member of the Springer UMUAI and Frontiers in Psychology journals and PC chair of the ACM UMAP 2021 conference.

MediaFutures Seminar: Chatting Communities into Existence: Local Chat Groups as Emerging Civic Infrastructures with Emilija Gagrčin from the University of Mannheim
2023-04-28 12:00 - 13:00
Emilija Gagrčin from the University of Mannheim will give a seminar on April 28th
TITLE: Chatting Communities into Existence: Local Chat Groups as Emerging Civic Infrastructures
WHEN: 28 April, 12:00 – 13:00

ABSTRACT:

This presentation explores the civic potential of messenger groups. It zooms into the everyday communication in local chat groups, focusing on the case study of building chat groups in urban neighborhoods from a comparative perspective. Drawing on interviews with building chat group members in Israel and Germany, we investigate how building communities are co-constructed between platform affordances and user practices, and how civic norms are negotiated between online and offline communication spaces. We map the uses, gratifications, and constraints of the chat groups and their relations with the spatial organization, informational flows, and socio-political environment in each community.
BIO:
Dr. Emilija Gagrčin is a research associate at the University of Mannheim and affiliated with the ERC project PREPARE at the University of Bergen.
Her research focus is on political media use. In particular, she is interested in social, normative, and infrastructural aspects of digital political communication, such as on social media and messenger apps. She focuses on norms and competencies necessary for a democratic coexistence in networked societies.
Dr. Emilija Gagrčin is affiliated with the Digital Political Inequality Lab at the University of California in Santa Barbara and the Weizenbaum Panel research group at the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society in Berlin. She is also a representative of Early-Career Scholars in the management team of the Political Communication Section of the European Communication Research and Education Conference (ECREA).
Organizer
This seminar is a collaboration between MediaFutures and the ERC project PREPARE.

SXSW 2023: Siste nytt om teknologi, medier og samfunn med Anders Hofseth fra NRKbeta
2023-05-09 12:00 - 13:00
SXSW 2023: Siste nytt om teknologi, medier og samfunn fra verdens største møteplass for smarte folk og klovner

Anders Hofseth fra NRKbeta går igjennom hovedlinjene fra SXSW 2023-konferansen.
Hvor: MediaFutures, Media City Bergen
Når: 9. mai, 12:00

Anders Hofseth er kommentator og strategisk rådgiver i NRKbeta, rikskringkasterens innsiktsmiljø for skjæringen teknologi – medier – samfunn. Mye av jobben hans er å samle innsikt, forsøke å forstå endringer, og sette dem i kontekst for NRK, så bedriften kan fortsette å løse allmennkringkasteroppdraget best mulig i skiftende tider.

MediaFutures Seminar: Hidden in Plain Sight: Microcelebrities navigating visibility and surveillance on Twitter with Özlem Demirkol Tønnesen, Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Bergen
2023-06-09 12:00 - 13:00
Özlem Demirkol Tønnesen from the University of Bergenwill give a seminar on June 9th.
TITLE: Hidden in Plain Sight: Microcelebrities navigating visibility and surveillance on Twitter
WHEN: 9 June, 12:00 – 13:00
WHERE: MediaFutures
ABSTRACT:
On social media, microcelebrities and influencers play various roles and hold immense power as “focusers of attention” (Tufekci, 2013). This project was formed as an intervention to the growing interest these content creators receive in academic research for their ability to guide their audiences towards products and lifestyles they promote, while the similar effects they may produce when sharing political opinions, viewpoints and behaviors are neglected.
This talk is based on Özlem’s PhD research into Turkish Twitter microcelebrities and how they express antigovernment viewpoints and navigate the tensions between self-expression and self-preservation under an authoritarian regimese. Drawing from an analysis of tweets by 97 microcelebrity accounts in the 3-months leading up to the 2018 Turkish elections, she discusses how these accounts consider sharing political opinions and news as a duty despite apparent risks and express their thoughts through a narration of everyday life and daily events by formulating a language that is understood by subgroups who are acclimated to the platform culture.
BIO:
Özlem Demirkol Tønnesen is a postdoctor fellow at the ERC-project PREPARE – Distributed and prepared. A new theory of citizens` public connection networks in the age of datafication. She completed her PhD at the University of Southampton.

MediaFutures Seminar: Metrics for Measuring Normative Diversity in News Recommendations with Sanne Vrijenhoek from the University of Amsterdam
2023-06-16 12:00 - 13:00
Sanne Vrijenhoek from the University of Amsterdam will give a seminar on June 16th
TITLE: Metrics for Measuring Normative Diversity in News Recommendations
WHEN: 16 June, 12:00 – 13:00

ABSTRACT: News recommenders have the potential to fulfill a crucial role in a democratic society, directing news readers towards the information that is most important to them. However, while much attention has been given to optimizing user engagement and enticing users to click, much less research has been done on incorporating editorial values in news recommender systems. I will talk about our interdisciplinary work on defining normative diversity for news recommender systems, challenges for implementation, and the way forward.

BI: Sanne Vrijenhoek is a PhD candidate at the University of Amsterdam and a member of the AI, Media and Democracy Lab. Her work focuses on translating normative notions of diversity into quantifiable concepts that can be incorporated in news recommender system design.

MediaFutures Seminar: Reaching New Audiences with Generative AI with Lydia Chilton, an Assistant Professor from Columbia University
2023-06-29 15:00 - 16:00
Lydia Chilton from Columbia University will give a seminar on June 29th

TITLE: Reaching New Audiences with Generative AI
WHEN: 29 June, 15:00 – 16:00
Presentation:
https://mediafutures.no/wp-content/uploads/Chilton_ReachingNewAudiences_June2023.pdf
ABSTRACT:
Writing a news article is a significant investment of time, energy, and intellect. For an article to have the impact it deserves, it needs to reach the right audiences. We demonstrate that generative AI tools can help journalists broaden their audience by transforming their content. Unlike previous technology, generative AI is flexible enough to modify the length, tone, message, and medium of content. But it needs human values and contextual understanding to guide it. We show how to turn articles into news illustrations for visual appeal on social media. We show how language models (like GPT 4) help find hooks to motivate topics so that they appeal to different audiences. And we show how to transform a traditional news article into TikTok-style reels. We then reflect on how generative AI can breathe new life into existing content through transformation, reuse, and retargeting information.

BIO:
Lydia Chilton is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at Columbia University. Her research is in computational design – how computation and AI can help people with design, innovation, and creative problem-solving. Applications include: creating media for journalism, developing technology for public libraries, improving risk communication during hurricanes, helping scientists explain their work, and improving mental health in marginalized communities. Dr. Chilton received her bachelor’s degree in computer science from MIT in 2007, her Masters in Engineering from MIT in 2009 and her PhD from the University of Washington in 2016. She was a post-doc at Stanford for 1 year before joining Columbia Engineering in 2017.

Liisa Ovaska: From permissive to resistive tactics: How audience members act, make sense and cope with audience-datafied journalism
2023-09-22 12:00 - 13:00 | MediaFutures, Media Futures HQ, 3rd floor, Bergen, 5008
We are pleased to invite to a seminar about Liisa Ovaska’s research paper on how audience members respond to audience-datafied journalism. Preliminary findings reveal a spectrum of strategies, ranging from resistance to acceptance, in how users engage with data-driven systems while consuming news.
Liisa Ovaska is a doctoral researcher at Tampere University. In her dissertation Ovaska studies the effects of audience metrics on audience members’ relations to digital journalism.
Where and When:
At MediaFutures, 22.september at 12:00
Abstract:

Although there exists a consensus of the fact that the usage of audience metrics has changed journalism, the audience’s perception to audience-datafied journalism has received less attention. In the newsrooms, metrics are used to collect data from audience and its behaviour, and further used to adjust the news outputs.
This talk will present Liisa Ovaska’s research paper, which examines how the audience members make sense, act and cope with audience-datafied journalism. Preliminary results suggest that the tactics varied from resistive to permissive: users tried either act against the datafied systems and minimise its impact to their news consumption or complied with the system by accepting it. The article is based on audience research conducted in the spring 2023. The data was produced by using group interviews and instant messaging group chats in which the participants reported of their encounters with datafied journalism for one week.

Irene Costera Meijer: TikTok as a case study to understand the layeredness of Media Experience:
2023-09-29 12:00 - 13:00 | MediaFutures, Media Futures HQ, 3rd floor, Bergen, 5008
Join our next Lunch Meeting with Irene Costera Meijer, Professor of Journalism Studies and head of the Journalism Studies section at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
She is also Work Package I Advisor and Key Researcher. Her research interests focus on audience studies and in particular on the impact of digitalization on changing practices of media consumption, media experiences and news use. When doing research she often collaborates with media organisations.
Where and When?
At MediaFutures, 29.september at 12:00
Abstract:
TikTok reaches around 44% of the 18-24 age group, with 20% explicitly saying they use it for news (Newman et al., 2023). It is not surprising, then, that (news) media have migrated to TikTok to engage with younger audiences. Yet, research shows that media struggle with reaching young people, because conventional formats do not always correspond with how young people use and experience social media platforms. Nordic researchers have argued that newsrooms would benefit from a platform-specific content approach: beyond merely (re)”packaging” the news and neglecting the content, they must learn to “speak the code of TikTok” to engage young audiences with their news.
We took a different non-news centric approach by analyzing how 99 young people (16 – 24) experience TikTok and whether there might be room for news in this experience. Experience may highlight positionality, temporality, embodiment, ambivalence and interaction (Costera Meijer & Groot Kormelink, 2021; Ytre-Arne et al., 2023). This approach allowed us to get insight into the RELATIVE value of news within their TikTok-experiences.
In my presentation I will show how the dimension of temporality – the discrepancy between love = ‘concurrent enjoyment’ and hate = ‘retrospective regret’ may offer valuable insights for public service media and news media to stand out on TikTok and be meaningful to a young audience.

Seminar on innovative human-computer interaction
2023-10-02 13:30 - 2023-10-03 16:30 | UiB Bergen, Norway
The Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research group at the University of Bergen in cooperation with MediaFutures invites to a two-day seminar addressing innovative HCI.
Eight research and industry leader from Norway, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, and Japan will be holding presentations on topics such as medical sensing and human-workspace interaction.
The seminar will be rounded off with a panel discussion. No registration required.
We welcome all students, researchers, innovators, and industry representatives who are interested to participate in the seminar.
Speakers
Masahiro Takei, Chiba University, Japan
Laura Anna Garrison, Informatics, VisGroup, Univeristy of Bergen
Tor Gjøsæter, Ilder AS, Bergen, Norway
Mohammad Khalil, SLATE, UiB, Norway
Kazuyuki Fujita, Tohoku University, Japan
Where and When?

MONDAY 2nd October 2023Venue: Storsalen, Nygårdsgaten 5, UiB, Bergen

Room URL: https://www.uib.no/l%C3%A6ringsarenaen/162450/om-storsalen

The sessions are: 13:30 – 16:30: From Medical Sensing to Interactive Sensemaking
TUESDAY 3rd October 2023Venue: Auditorium 129 at Bjørn Christiansens house, Christies gate 12, UiB, Bergen (also shown in room 128)

Room URL: https://rom.app.uib.no/romInfo/q.php/206/129 and https://rom.app.uib.no/romInfo/q.php/206/128
The sessions are: 12:15 – 14:00: Smart Workspaces14:30 – 16:30: From Research to Innovation

More information can be found on uib.no

More Room for Language: Investigating the Effect of Retrieval on Language Models
2024-02-13 12:15 - 13:00 | UiO, Room 4118, Styrerom
The Language Technology Group (LTG) at University in Oslo is organising weekly RAG seminars. They do research on a number of topics related to Natural Language Processing (NLP), a subfield of Artificial Intelligence enabling computers to `make sense’ of human language. This weeks speakers for the LTG research seminar are David Samuel, Lucas Charpentier and Sondre Wold, PhD Candidates at the LTG.
They will present their work on investigating the effects of pretraining with retrieval on a language model.
The talk will be held in room 4118, Styrerom, from 12:15 to 13:00 on Tuesday 13th of February and also streamed on Zoom, you can join with this link: https://uio.zoom.us/j/66002313655?pwd=[REDACTED]
Abstract
Retrieval-augmented language models pose a promising alternative to standard language modeling. During pretraining, these models search in a corpus of documents for contextually relevant information that could aid the language modeling objective. We introduce an `ideal retrieval’ methodology to study these models in a fully controllable setting. We conduct an extensive evaluation to examine how retrieval augmentation affects the behavior of the underlying language model. Among other things, we observe that these models: {i) save substantially less world knowledge in their weights, (ii) are better in understanding local context and inter-word dependencies, but {iii) are worse in comprehending global context.

Launching NB-Whisper
2024-02-15 10:00 - 14:30 | Nasjonalbiblioteket – Store Auditorium, Henrik Ibsens gate 110, Oslo, 0254
Our partner, the National Library, invites you to a “launch seminar” for their newest speech-to-text model for Norwegian.
They have invited the police, Schibsted, and TV2 to share how they use speech-to-text. They have been part of their beta group and will discuss the model’s handling of Norwegian in various contexts.
After lunch, the seminar will become more technically oriented, especially suitable for those interested in deeper insights into the technical and linguistic aspects related to the development of such AI models.
The event is open to all and will be streamed on nb.no. To secure your spot, get your free ticket here!
Program
10:00 Welcome by Aslak Sira Myhre, National Library
Part 1: NB-Whisper and its usage
10:20 Brief introduction to Whisper by Per Egil Kummervold, National Library
10:30 Use of speech-to-text in the police by Bente Skattør, Police
10:50 Applications for speech recognition with NB-Whisper by Anders Haarr, Schibsted
11:10 Use and legal requirements for accessibility by Anne Cathrine Gotaas, TV2
11:30 Lunch break
Part 2: NB-Whisper: technological aspects
12:30 Status of ASR in Norwegian today by Marie Røsok, National Library
12:50 Evaluation and results by Per Egil Kummervold, National Library
13:10 How to build a dataset for training Whisper by Freddy Wetjen and Rolv-Arild Braaten, National Library
13:30 Advanced use of NB-Whisper by Per Egil Kummervold and Javier de la Rosa, National Library
14:00 Questions and discussion

Trends in news use and avoidance
2024-02-16 12:00 - 13:00 | MediaFutures, Media Futures HQ, 3rd floor, Bergen, 5008
In times of a rather negative-angled news landscape, NRK mapped Norwegians’ approach to news, and news avoidance, with extra focus on the young readers. With data from NRK’s ​​Youth survey, Reuters Digital News Report, Norsk Mediebarometer, Opinions UNG2024 and more, we see some new features in how news is consumed – and avoided.
On February 16th, MediaFutures work package 1 is inviting to a lunch seminar on the development of news use and avoidance.
The seminar will be held in Norwegian.
Seminar speaker is Ingvild Hjertaas, Media Researcher in NRK Analysis / NRK News. Ingvild worked 10 years in Aftenposten as product manager where she also was giving courses in digital tools and content production before she started in NRK in 2017. She has developed a highly effective understanding of what works and engages users online, and has played a key role in the development and operation of popular services such as quizzes and word games. The lunchseminar will start at 12 o’clock in MediaFutures office, 3rd floor in MCB. To join digital follow the link to zoom

News personalization with "Curate"
2024-04-05 13:00 - 14:00 | MediaFutures, Media Futures HQ, 3rd floor, Bergen, 5008
MediaFutures invites to a seminar on news personalization with Schibsted in MediaFutures headquarter, MCB, 3rd floor. The seminar will also be streamed.
The Curate project has been created to enable Schibsted media outlets to craft an optimal content selection for each individual user, delivering content tailored precisely to their preferences, in the appropriate format, location, and timing, all while upholding the journalistic integrity of the mission. Originally developed to curate Aftenposten’s front page in Norway, Curate has evolved into the central recommendation system for over 50 news brands within the Schibsted and Polaris Media groups.
Christoph Schmitz, Product Manager of Curate and Jacob Welander, Data Scientist at Schibsted will tell us in this seminar about the project itself, what has been done so far and how Schibsted has been utilizing such technology innovating media experience.
Join the meeting on zoom:
https://uib.zoom.us/j/69494993779?pwd=[REDACTED]

Mobilisation seminar on AI for trust and sustainability
2024-04-10 10:00 - 14:00 | Storsalen, Nygårdsgaten 5, første etasje.
In connection with the upcoming announcement of the AI billion, the Research and Innovation Department at UiB (Forsknings- og innovasjonsavdelingen FIA) invites academic communities researching artificial intelligence to a mobilization seminar. The purpose is to highlight AI environments and center initiatives at UiB, and identify opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration in future work.
The Research Council’s board decided at the meeting on February 7th that the Government’s billion-dollar investment “AI for Trust and Sustainability” will be announced in the form of 4-6 centers for artificial intelligence. The centers will be 5-year thematic, challenge-driven initiatives, promoting interdisciplinary, interinstitutional, and cross-sectoral collaboration. The announcement is divided into two parts, with a mandatory outline in the first step, to be submitted by June 7, 2024. Here you can read more about how the Research Council envisions the focus of the centers in each of the three main areas – societal consequences, technological development, and innovative use.
The keynote speaker at the event will be Anne Kjersti Fahlvik, Director of the Research Council’s area, followed by a question and answer session after her presentation.
We will also facilitate opportunities for environments interested in coordinating an AI center and planning to apply for the announcement to present a brief pitch with their idea for a center application in plenary. There will be ample opportunity to explore collaboration and synergies with other AI environments at UiB and external stakeholders and potential partners through a networking lunch session. All academic communities with an AI profile are invited to this event, and we encourage everyone interested in participating in a center application to join. Those wishing to present their pitch for an AI center on stage should register this in the registration form by April 2nd.
The deadline for registration for the general public is extended to April 5th.
**Program:**
**10:00-11:00**
– **Welcome and Information about the Announcement**
– Welcome by Vice-Rector Pinar Heggernes, UiB
– Presentation by Anne Kjersti Fahlvik, Director of Innovation in Business and Public Sector, Research Council
– Q&A Session
**11:00-11:20**
– **Coffee Break**
**11:20-12:55**
– **AI Center and Research Center Applications**
– Support System and Application Process at UiB by Birgit Falch, Research and Innovation Department, and Alexander Oltu, IT Department
– What Does it Entail to Apply for a Research Center? TBA
– Pitches for Research Centers for Artificial Intelligence at UiB
– Upon registration, participants in the seminar who wish to coordinate a center application are encouraged to indicate whether they will pitch their idea for an artificial intelligence center to the audience. The purpose of idea pitching is to open up collaboration opportunities and invite stakeholders and academic communities interested in contributing to further develop the idea.
**12:55-13:00**
– **Conclusion, Introduction to Lunch and Networking**
**13:00-14:00**
– **Lunch and Networking in the Lounge outside the Main Hall, with Opportunity for Posters/Stands**
