MediaFutures

Arctic Frontiers 2026 - Turn of the Tide
2026-02-02 08:00 - 2026-02-05 17:00 (Europe/Oslo) | Clarion The Edge Hotel, Tromsø
Arctic Frontiers is a catalyst for decision-making and network building by mobilizing key voices of science, policy, business, and local Arctic communities, to rapidly turn knowledge into actions.
The Arctic Frontiers Administration has, since 2007, organized the annual Arctic Frontiers conference in Tromsø, which gathers scientists, businesses, policymakers and representative of local and indigenous peoples for holistic discussions about the future of the Arctic region. Additionally, the organization hosts year-round activities, including Arctic Frontiers Abroad events, Arctic Frontiers Open events for the public and Arctic Frontiers Young events for the future generation of Arctic leaders between 5-35 years old.
Arctic Frontiers works closely with our partner network to provide knowledge-based and up-to-date perspectives on Arctic issues. The competence and interdisciplinarity of the partner network are unique in both national and international contexts.
Turn of the Tide 2026
In the Arctic, as across the globe, tides are shifting. Geopolitical landscapes are evolving, climate systems are accelerating, and economic structures are being reshaped. From rising temperatures and economic recalibration to cultural resurgence, the Arctic is both a witness to and a driver of transformation. This year’s theme underscores the ebb and flow of the world, and the time for change. In this moment of opportunity, we invite participants to reflect on the rhythms of global change and their implications for the pan-Arctic region. In 2026 we will bring together leading voices to examine the state of Arctic collaboration, economic transitions, infrastructure needs, technological frontiers, and the health of the ocean that unites the region. And as the world’s tide turns, we will explore how the Arctic can influence, adapt to, and help shape the global future.

Science SESSIONS

Arctic Frontiers 2026 will feature 7 different science and research themes. These are designed to be interdisciplinary and welcome submissions from natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, law, management, and more. All researchers are welcome to submit an abstract to the session that best suits their work.
The themes for 2026 are:

Monitoring, Modeling, and Mitigating the Consequences of Arctic Permafrost Change
Maritime Extremes: Communication, Uncertainty and Emerging Technologies
High Tide for Arctic Preparedness
Governance and Policy for Sustainable Space Activities
Ocean Observational Pyramid: From Seabed to Space Monitoring
Maintaining and Developing Arctic Observing Capabilities
Arctic Transformation: Climate Change and Cumulative Effects on Ecosystems

Centre leader Christoph Trattner will be part of the Science Committee for the session called High Tide for Arctic Preparedness.
2026 Conference Program will be launched in November.

Linguistic representations and their role in the era of LLMs
2026-01-30 11:15 - 16:00 | Kristen Nygaards sal (5370), Ole-Johan Dahls hus, University of Oslo
We are pleased to invite you to the trial lecture and public defence of Huiling You, PhD candidate at SFI MediaFutures.
Date: 30 JanuaryVenue: Kristen Nygaards sal (5370), Ole-Johan Dahls hus, University of Oslo
Time:
11:15 Trial lecture
13:15 Disputation
PhD thesis:Event Extraction from News: Resources, Methods and Application
Trial lecture:Linguistic representations and their role in the era of LLMs
Main research findings:
In an era of information overload, transforming unstructured news into structured knowledge is a fundamental challenge for natural language processing. Event extraction, the process of identifying specific occurrences and the people or organizations involved, is essential for tracking global developments and detecting emerging crises. By automating these processes, we can significantly improve the efficiency of news analysis and the consistency of information tracking across diverse media landscapes.
This thesis advances both the methodologies and resources available for event extraction in the news domain. The research shifts from treating events as isolated labels toward representing them as unified semantic graphs that capture the full context of how entities and events interact. To address the gap in support for smaller languages, the work introduces new annotated datasets and investigates generative AI techniques that excel in settings where training data is limited.
The findings demonstrate that these sophisticated models produce more detailed and accurate representations of complex news narratives than traditional approaches. Additionally, the thesis shows how this structured analysis can be applied to evaluate and improve the factual consistency of automated news summaries. Ultimately, this research offers a robust framework for building more reliable and linguistically inclusive systems for global news monitoring.
Adjudication committee:

Professor Antske Fokkens, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Professor Marco Kuhlmann, Linköping University, Sweden
Professor Martin Giese, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway

Supervisors:

Professor Lilja Øvrelid, University of Oslo, Norway
Professor Erik Velldal, University of Oslo, Norway
Associate Professor Samia Touileb, University of Bergen, Norway

Chair of defence:

Associate Professor Ellen Munthe-Kaas, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo

Adhera Health Seminar: AI as Family Media for Health and Wellbeing: Personalization, Context, and Biopsychosocial Perspectives
2026-01-21 12:00 - 13:00 | MediaFutures HQ, 3rd Floor, Tower 1, Media City, Media Futures HQ, 3rd floor, Bergen, 5008
MediaFutures invites to Adhera Health’s seminar on AI as family media for health and wellbeing.
Adhera Health is a digital health company that creates AI-powered, personalized support platforms and programs to empower families and caregivers managing pediatric chronic conditions, improve treatment adherence and wellbeing, and enhance health outcomes through evidence-based digital interventions.
AI as Family Media for Health and Wellbeing: Personalization, Context, and Biopsychosocial Perspectives

Abstract
Families today must navigate a complex landscape of health and wellbeing information, often facing waves of misinformation and conflicting guidance. Artificial intelligence can act as a media and communication technology that supports families in interpreting information, building trust, and making informed decisions, while respecting individual and family-level differences.
Modern personalized health communication increasingly relies on context-aware systems that adapt content to family routines, beliefs, and emotional dynamics. Such systems must carefully balance challenges including reducing stigma, respecting the autonomy of different family members, and delivering sensitive content that addresses diverse needs and perspectives. These systems integrate clinical data, psychosocial factors, and personal preferences to generate adaptive, multimodal educational materials, behavioral guidance, and emotional support.
A biopsychosocial perspective is central, recognizing that effective AI-mediated interventions consider biological, psychological, and social dimensions of health. Pediatrics represents a prime testing ground for these approaches, given the need for sensitive, high-stakes communication and the limited research on AI-mediated personalized family support in this context.
Drawing on ongoing research with Adhera Health (USA and Spain) and the University of Bergen, we present examples of AI-mediated communication that complement human care, helping families navigate complex health information responsibly, foster trust, and support wellbeing in ethically and emotionally informed ways.
Speaker bio
Luis Fernández-Luque is Chief Scientific Officer at Adhera Health, where he leads R&D activities in Spain and the USA, including projects funded by the European Commission and NIH, as well as partnerships with healthcare providers and pharmaceutical companies across Europe and the United States.
Since 2006, Luis has conducted pioneering research in mobile health, wearable devices, and AI-driven health applications, including deep learning and health recommender systems. His work sits at the intersection of computer science and behavioral change, combining human factors research with AI to deliver personalized, trustworthy, and effective digital health interventions. He has led and contributed to international research projects on diabetes and obesity in adult and pediatric populations across Europe, North America, and Asia. He earned his PhD at the University of Tromsø, exploring strategies to identify trustworthy content for people with chronic conditions, and collaborated during his PhD with GroupLens (University of Minnesota), the CDC, and Microsoft Research.
Luis has extensive experience in research management, including serving as PI and co-PI on large-scale projects and mentoring PhD students. He is a senior member of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society and has held leadership roles in top scientific societies. He has authored over 150 publications, many of which address the intersection of AI, behavioral science, and digital health in chronic disease management.

Bridging AI and Behavior Change (ABC)
2026-01-20 08:00 - 2026-01-21 17:00 | Singapore
MediaFutures director professor Christoph Trattner together with an international team organises a bridge event at the world leading AI conference AAAI in Singapore next January. Read how you can submit a paper below.
The event Bridging AI and Behavior Change (ABC) brings together the AI and behavioral science communities to address the urgent need for responsible, explainable, and effective behavior-aware technologies. With the rapid rise of LLM, generative AI, reinforcement learning, and agentic systems capable of shaping human decisions, this bridge aims to establish common ground between technical innovation and behavioral science theories of decision-making, nudging, and motivation. Their objective is to catalyze sustained collaboration across AI, psychology, behavioral economics, digital health, sustainability, and public policy, enabling the design of ethical and transparent interventions for health, well-being, sustainability, and civic engagement.
Key themes include:

personalization vs. public interest
boundaries of responsible nudging
intervention design and adaptive/optimal treatment assignment
evaluation frameworks for long-term behavior change, habit formation, and mental health/wellness
bias and equity in algorithmic decision-making
ethics, transparency, and compliance with emerging regulations (e.g., EU AI Act)
cross-domain applications in health, sustainability, education, social media interventions, and civic participation
reinforcement learning for efficient exploration
psychological science foundations
and the development of shared protocols, datasets, recommender systems, and explanation frameworks for trustworthy, behavior-aware AI.

The ABC Bridge is a 1-day in-person program combining education, collaboration, and outreach:

Education (Morning): Tutorials introducing behavioral science for AI researchers and AI methods for behavioral scientists; a hands-on case lab on AI-driven nudging.
Collaboration (Afternoon): Paper and poster presentations; debate on “Can AI nudge responsibly without manipulation?”; breakout groups co-developing draft Responsible Nudging Guidelines.
Outreach (Closing): A plenary summary panel and a motivational talk at the AAAI main conference to communicate the Bridge’s vision and recommendations to the broader AI community.

We anticipate 30–50 participants, including AI/ML researchers, behavioral scientists, ethicists, HCI scholars, public health experts, and early-career researchers.
Submission requirements
We invite Short (2–4 pages), Long (4–8 pages), Vision (4–6 pages), Position (2–4 pages), and Demo (2–4 pages) papers or extended abstracts highlighting interdisciplinary research, position statements, or case studies relevant to responsible AI and behavior change. Submissions will be reviewed by the bridge committee.
Submission site information https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=aaai2026abc
Bridge Chair

Mehrdad Rostami, University of Oulu, Finland – mehrdad.rostami@oulu.fi ·
Christoph Trattner (University of Bergen, Norway) – christoph.trattner@uib.no ·
Alexander Felfernig (Graz University of Technology, Austria) – alexander.felfernig@tugraz.at ·
Michael Sobolev (Cedars-Sinai Medical Center / USC, USA) – msobolev@usc.edu ·
Mourad Oussalah (University of Oulu, Finland) – mourad.oussalah@oulu.fi

Winter School at the Northern Lights Deep Learning (NLDL) Conference
2026-01-05 08:00 - 2026-01-09 17:00 | UiT Campus
MediaFutures associate professor Samia Touileb will be speaker at the Winter School at the Northern Lights Deep Learning (NLDL) Conference 2026!
The NLDL Winter School consists of tutorials by experts in the field and is co-hosted by NORA as part of the NORA Research School.
For registration, please use https://www.nldl.org/attend/registration
Getting formal ECTS Credits: UiT The Arctic University of Norway will award 5 ECTS for the Winter School to students who register formally for the course (the number of spots is limited to 40 students).

To register for the 5 ECTS credits use the following link: https://en.uit.no/admission#kapittel_735916

The course description and the course code are available at: https://uit.no/utdanning/emner/emne/862218/fys-8603

Please note that the application deadline is 15 November, which means that you will receive a confirmation of admission a week after the deadline, i.e., 25 November.

For credits, the participants are required to present an ongoing research project (poster presentation) as part of the winter school and complete a home exam afterward. For students early in their PhD without an ongoing research project can present their PhD research objective and future project as a poster.

Note that the poster presentation is part of the NLDL Winter School and not part of the NLDL proceedings. The posters should be in A0 Portrait format.

Posters can be printed locally via Xtenso. If you want to use this service, the poster should be sent to mette@xtenso.no by 20th December. The cost for poster printing is 750 NOK.

Touilebs research focuses on alignment, bias and fairness in NLP, information extraction, summarization, and the application of NLP and machine learning in social science contexts. Her tutorial will address the main sources of bias in NLP systems, existing frameworks for fairness, safety concerns, and current debates about alignment:
Tutorial 4: Ethical challenges in NLP
While AI systems have shown remarkable progress in recent years they raise various ethical challenges. In this tutorial, we will explore this ethical dimension with a particular focus on bias, fairness, and alignment in Natural Language Processing (NLP). The tutorial will combine theoretical discussions with practical examples. We will discuss the main sources of bias in NLP systems, existing frameworks for fairness, safety concerns, and current debates about alignment. We will have a practical, hands-on, session to demonstrate how bias and other safety concerns manifest in modern NLP models, and how to critically evaluate them and reduce them.

Popularity Bias in Recommender Systems​
2025-12-15 09:15 - 14:00 | Ulrike Pihls Hus, Ulrikes aula, Professor Keysers gate 1, Bergen, Norway
We are pleased to invite you to the trial lecture and public defence of Anastasiia Klimashevskaia, PhD candidate at SFI MediaFutures.
Date: 15 December Venue: Ulrikes Aula, University of Bergen
Time: To be confirmed
PhD Thesis:Beyond Popularity: Investigating and Mitigating Bias in Recommender Systems
Thesis Summary:Recommender systems are powerful tools shaping what users see and engage with online. However, they often suffer from popularity bias, where already popular items are disproportionately promoted while niche content remains underrepresented. This bias reduces diversity, user satisfaction, and fairness across platforms.
In her doctoral work, Anastasiia Klimashevskaia examines the causes and effects of popularity bias through a comprehensive literature review, explores debiasing strategies using real-world datasets, and evaluates their performance in an online A/B test within a live recommender system.
Her research further investigates how popularity bias interacts with other algorithmic biases and proposes novel mitigation strategies based on alternative theoretical frameworks. The findings shed light on the trade-offs between fairness, diversity, and recommendation quality—contributing to the creation of more equitable recommender systems.
All are warmly welcome to attend and take part in celebrating Anastasiia’s important milestone.

Research on Norwegian Open Large Language Models at UiO
2025-12-11 09:15 - 11:45 | Seminar room Logo 2438, UiO
The Language Technology Group (LTG) at the Department of Informatics, including the leaders of MediaFutures work package 5, hosts a seminar on open large language models for the languages of Norway, with emphasis on ongoing experimentation at LTG with end-to-end model training and evaluation, as well as the introduction of an experimental chatbot prototype.
Large language models (LLMs) are the main engine under the hood of what is often called “generative AI”. For many, it may look as if they emerged out of the blue, and they are mostly associated with commercial blackbox services run by BigTech companies, with trade secrets locked behind armored gates.
But in fact LLMs originally come from research labs and models and training data used to be open: in the same sense as open source software and open science. And nowadays, open LLMs again show signs of catching up in performance with their closed proprietary counterparts, including for languages other than English.
Through the seminar, LTG will present research on open and transparent LLMs conducted at UiO. We will reflect on experiences in adaptation to Norwegian and Sámi, limitations in training and evaluation data, pre-training and fine-tuning of open models, and open methodological questions. For this work, LTG also provides a chatbot prototype, based on our most recent Norwegian model NorMistral-11B.
In addition to presentations by LTG researchers, the Norwegian Language Council will review their findings comparing open and closed LLMs with regards to their Norwegian language skills, and the National Library will present on LLM training data for research in Norway.
Everyone is welcome!
Registration
To help us plan for the event, we ask that prospective participants register on-line.
Program
Coffee is served from 09:15. Moderator: Yves Scherrer (LTG).
9:30 – 9:40 Welcome and introduction (Lilja Øvrelid, LTG)
9:40 – 9:55 The importance of openness in the era of generative AI (Andrey Kutuzov, LTG)
9:55 – 10:05 Web-derived LLM training data for Norwegian (Stephan Oepen, LTG)
10:05 – 10:15 Training data for Norwegian LLM research (National Library of Norway)
10:15 – 10:30 Coffee break
10:30 – 10:50 Developing NorMistral-11B, with chat interface demonstration (David Samuel, LTG)
10:50 – 11:05 NorEval: Native Benchmarking for Norwegian LLMs (Vladislav Mikhailov, LTG)
11:05 – 11:25 The language quality of the Norwegian output in language models. Test results from the Language Council (Kristine Eide, Language Council of Norway)
11:25 – 11:45 Outlook, Q&A (Erik Velldal, LTG)

News experience: Understanding why and how audiences interact with news beyond audience metrics
2025-12-09 09:15 - 14:30 | Ulrike Pihls Hus, Ulrikes aula, Professor Keysers gate 1, Bergen, Norway
We are pleased to invite you to the trial lecture and public defence of Marianne Borchgrevink-Brækhus, PhD candidate at SFI MediaFutures.
Date: 9 DecemberVenue: Ulrikes Aula, Ulrike Pihls hus
Time: The trial lecture starts at 09:15 and the defense begins at 10:30.
PhD Thesis:News experience: Understanding why and how audiences interact with news beyond audience metrics
Thesis Summary:
This thesis explores how we can understand news use as experience. While audiences have become increasingly central to professional journalism and journalism studies, understandings of audience practices and behaviors are predominantly shaped by digital trace data. Yet, despite this growing attention to audiences, news practitioners and scholars continue to talk more about audiences than with them. As a result, our knowledge about people’s interactions with news, and what these practices actually mean, remains limited. Against this backdrop, I approach news use as experience. I ask how we can further a more nuanced understanding of why and how audiences use news, starting from the vantage point of the audience.
To address these questions, I employ a multi-method research design, combining recurring interviews and media diaries, supplemented with video-ethnography and data donations. Drawing on the empirical insights provided by this multi-method approach, I refine the concept of news experience, emphasizing the importance of contextualizing understandings of news use within people’s everyday lives. By studying news use from an audience-centric perspective – bridging traditional qualitative methods with innovative digital ethnographic approaches across different media formats and platforms – I identify different experiences with news that both shape people’s practices and behaviors.
The empirical material is analyzed through four articles. The first article explores why young adults are reluctant to subscribe to digital news. I do this by analyzing experiences of young non-subscribers. The article provides insights into their considerations of why they do not subscribe as well as how they maneuver around paid news content. The second article offers a conceptualization of media experience, demonstrating how this concept is well-attuned to grasp the ingrained position and meaning media hold in people’s lives. Applying conceptual principles from the second article, the third article refines news experience as an analytical lens to understanding why and how people interact with news in everyday life, empirically grounded in six distinct forms of experience shaping people’s practices. Finally, the fourth article critically assesses the metric of “time spent” by analyzing how people navigate when reading news online, and how short digital news practices relate to meaningful experiences with news.
By talking with people instead of about them, this thesis critically assesses longstanding assumptions and misconceptions about audiences and their (digital) behaviors at a time when VI audience metrics have become integral to professional journalism and journalism studies. While I situate my research in relation to the audience turn in journalism research, this thesis contributes to the existing literature by detailing methodological and epistemological implications of studying news use as experience. In doing so, my research recognizes the lived, contextual dimensions of everyday life that ultimately give shape and meaning to people’s news practices: it demonstrates how audiences’ behaviors are formed not merely by perceptions of the news content itself, but also by embodied, material, and technological dimensions; the spatial, temporal, and social contexts in which it unfolds; and by their identities and previous knowledge. As such, the thesis explicates how news use can result from conscious and explicit, as well as unconscious and tacit practices and behaviors. I therefore argue that digital trace data – although relevant for identifying patterns and trends – cannot be applied as proxies for people’s interests or preferences. These insights are not only relevant from a societal perspective and to the field of journalism studies to inform more balanced assessments of news use in digital societies, but also in professional terms as media organizations justify their policies and financial investments on the basis of such metrics.
Opponents:

Professor Jannie Møller Hartley, The Department of Communication and Arts, Roskilde University
Professor Marcel Broersma, Centre for Media and Journalism Studies, University of Groningen

Leader of committee:
Professor Dag Elgesem, Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen.
Chair of the defense:
Professor Leif Ove Larsen, Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen.

UiB AI #17 Open Artificial Intelligence
2025-12-04 10:00 - 12:00
This UiB AI seminar is organized by the Faculty of Law and raises the question: Can AI models be open in the same way as open-source software, and should they be?
Open artificial intelligence refers to AI systems whose underlying programs and infrastructure, training data, model architecture, and model weights are wholly or partly openly available, allowing anyone to study, modify, and redistribute them. Large models such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini offer access to their models, but this access is limited to using the model. Other actors, such as Meta’s Llama and the Chinese model DeepSeek, present themselves as open, but in reality provide only access to model weights and the ability to run the model locally. Their use is also subject to license terms that restrict both further distribution and commercial use.
But what does it actually mean for an AI model to be open? Can there be limitations on the use of open AI models? And should such models really be open, given that openness may also make misuse easier?
The seminar will be streamed and recorded and given in Norwegian.
PROGRAM:
10:00 Coffee/tea and mingling
10:15–11:30 Presentations

Torger Kielland, Professor at the Faculty of Law

Pål Grønås Drange, Associate Professor at the Department of Informatics, Faculty of Science and Technology

11:30 Light lunch and mingling

Evaluation of norwegian language models: language and law
2025-11-18 12:15 - 13:15 | Spiserommet, Domus Academica, Oslo
In this seminar, Lilja Øvrelid and Hans Christian Farsethås will give an overview of Norwegian language models and how they are evaluated. They will outline the main features of current evaluation methodology, review existing Norwegian evaluations, and highlight where new approaches are needed—particularly in specialist domains such as law.
Lilja Øvrelid, WP5 leader in MediaFutures, is a Professor at the Department of Informatics (University of Oslo) and leads the Language Technology Group (LTG). She is also a co-leader in Integreat.
Hans Christian Farsethås is a researcher at the Department of Public and International Law (University of Oslo) and part of the Digital Welfare State project.
This seminar is organized by the Research Group on Law & Technology (JOT) and the Norwegian Research Center for Computers and Law (SERI).The event will take place in Oslo and will be held in Norwegian only.

Annual Meeting 25: Our public flagship conference
2025-11-13 09:00 - 19:00 | Scandic Ørnen, Bergen
On November 13, we are inviting to our yearly international flagship conference on media technology and AI. This is a public event and this year’s focus is:
Navigating Uncertainty with AI: Battling Misinformation & Empowering Users
— and we’d love for you to join us. Please register below.
The day is open to everyone: media professionals, researchers, students, technologists, and anyone curious about where media tech and AI are headed. It is a great opportunity to network, learn, and explore what is happening locally, nationally and internationally.
You can expect a full day of demonstrations, posters, presentations and panel talks, all centred on what is hot in media technology and AI right now. From theoretical frameworks to hands-on research and practical tools, the event offers a broad look at current projects and ongoing developments in the field.
Try out demos we have built, exchange ideas, and expand your view on how media tech can be developed and made more responsible for the future.

Registration closed

The deadline to register has passed. We can put you on the waiting list if you send us an email with your name and affiliation to office@mediafutures.no.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Cornelia Bjørke-Hill
Director Communication
Microsoft Norway
LinkedIn

Bio
Cornelia Bjørke-Hill is Communications Lead at Microsoft Norway, driving strategic narratives that connect global innovation with local impact. With over a decade in communications, including eight years as comms director within the HR tech industry, and more than 20 years in broadcast journalism for leading Norwegian media, Cornelia brings deep expertise in storytelling and trust-building. At Microsoft, she focuses on making AI relevant for Norway by translating global technology trends into meaningful value creation.

Keynote Speech
Title: Reinventing Communication with AI
Abstract:
In her talk, “Reinventing Communications with AI,” she reveals how intelligent tools amplify creativity and impact—without losing the human touch. Through real-world examples from her own craft, Cornelia demonstrates how AI can transform manual tasks into a strategic advantage, helping organizations communicate with clarity, authenticity, and purpose while using AI to use the human brain where it delivers the most impact.

Alex Connock
Senior Fellow & Professor
University of Oxford
LinkedIn

Bio
Dr Alex Connock is an academic in the media business and AI, who has written a trilogy of books spanning the contemporary media business – Media Management and Artificial Intelligence (2022) Media Management and Live Experience: Sports, Culture, Entertainment and Events (2024) and Entrepreneurship in Media and Entertainment (2025.)
He is also a leading international and industry speaker on the media business and how it is being changed by AI.
Academically, Alex is Senior Fellow at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, teaching AI, Marketing and Media Business courses at BA, MBA and EMBA level. He co-launched and ran Oxford postgraduate diploma in Artificial Intelligence for Business from 2021-3. and is Lecturer at St Hugh’s College, Oxford in Management.
Alex is also Professor in Media and Artificial Intelligence at Exeter University, and Professor in Media Innovation and Sunderland University. He has a PhD in video optimisation for e-commerce and degrees from Oxford (PPE) Columbia (Journalism) and INSEAD (MBA).

Keynote Speech
Title: How can AI be your Superpower in 2026?
Abstract:
Everyone in media is now using AI to some extent. After years of holding back, many media companies are overtly all-in on it. Many others are still publicly reticent – whilst secretly going all-in behind the scenes. So three years after Chat GPT turned the world of content upside down, what are the particular, new AI strategies that will win for media producers and owners in 2026 ? Dr Alex Connock has specialised in the field at Oxford University since 2019 and wrote a globally successful book on it in 2022, republished from Türkiye to Korea. He will offer his latest thoughts on this fascinating and ever-changing subject. He will cover not only generative AI (words, images, sound and video) but also other areas of AI which sometimes get less coverage in media circles, but ought to: AI agents, Machine Learning techniques in research, recommendation algorithms and how to win at them, Intellectual Property and how to think about it, compliance, entrepreneurship, bias, geopolitics and AGI. In almost every case, Alex will explain how the received wisdom in the media industry is as wrong as it is right – and often both at the same time. And subsequent to that, in case anyone thinks AI is old hat, he’s also writing a new book on the Media and Quantum Computing, so he will offer some initial thoughts on that mind-expanding area as well: the real Black Mirror.

PROGRAM

08:00
Registration opens

08:55
Event Intro & Housekeeping

09:00
Welcome Addresses: Lars Nyre (UiB), Synnøve Kristine Nepstad Bendixsen (UiB), Christian Birkeland (TV2), Christoph Trattner (MediaFutures)

Keynotes

09:15
1st Keynote: “Reinventing Communication with AI” (Cornelia Bjørke-Hill, Microsoft Norway)

09:45
Moderated Q&A by Mehdi Elahi (MediaFutures & UiB)

10:00
2nd Keynote: “How can AI be your Superpower in 2026?” (Alex Connock, Oxford University)

10:30
Moderated Q&A by Alain Starke (MediaFutures & UvA)

10:45
Conference Picture & Coffee Break

Session 1: Reimagining Media: Industry at the AI Crossroads

11:05
Talk One: “Multimodal AI Agents in the Media Industry” (Zhixian Bao, Google Norway)

11:20
Talk Two: “AI Agents in Action: Transforming Work in Media & Entertainment” (Maxim Salnikov, Microsoft Norway)

11:35
Talk Three: “At the Crossroads of AI and Journalism: Competing, Collaborating, and Co-Creating the Future of Media” (Victorina Demirel, Schibsted)

11:50
Moderated Q&A by Andreas Lothe Opdahl (MediaFutures & UiB)

12:05
Lunch Break

Session 2: Computing for Society: Modeling Trust & Interactions

13:15
Talk One: “Integrating AI into Platform Writing Tasks? Not So Fast” (Mor Naaman, Cornell Tech)

13:30
Talk Two: “AI-generated stories: the nostalgia of large language models” (Jill Walker Rettberg, Center for Digital Narrative)

13:45
Talk Three: “Slow AI: When the Journey is the Destination” (Ingmar Weber, University of Saarland)

14:00
Moderated Q&A by Erik Knudsen (MediaFutures & UiB)

14:15
Coffee & Cake Break

Session 3: Building Trust: Personalisation, Engagement & Misinformation

14:35
Talk One: “Beyond facts: Messaging strategies to counter health misinformation” (Daniel Catalán Matamoros, UC3M MediaLab)

14:50
Talk Two: “Conversational and Understandable News” (Bart Goethals, Froomle, University of Antwerp)

15:05
Talk Three: “AI DAY at ORF; Where Technology Meets Content” (Stefan Kollinger, ORF)

15:20
Moderated Q&A by Lilja Øvrelid (MediaFutures & UiO)

15:35
Coffee Break

Panel Session: Inside the Newsroom: Norwegian Media’s AI Journey

15:55
Company Pitches: Magnus Aabech (DN Group), Chris R. Hermansen (TV2), Jan Stian Vold (Bergens Tidende), Erik Bonesvoll (Amedia), Victorina Demirel (Schibsted)

16:10
Moderated Debate by Morten Langfeldt Dahlback (Faktisk.no)

16:40
Refreshment Break

Demo & Poster Session

16:55
MediaFutures’ Gaze-Tracking Project: Yuki Onishi (MediaFutures), Nataliya Nymo (VIZRT) & Snorre Alvsvåg (TV2)

17:05
MediaFutures’ AI Video Editor Project: Adane Tarekegn (MediaFutures) & Lubos Steskal (TV2)

17:10
Poster Pitches

17:30
Interactive Demos & Networking

18:30
Poster Awards

19:00
Conference Dinner

The Program is subject to change.

CONFERENCE DINNER

Location: Roast Restaurant, Scandic Ørnen, top floor

19:00
Welcome Reception

19:30
First Course & Director’s Speech

20:00
Second Course & Show with Bergen Improteater

20:30
Third Course & Live music with Raa Duo

21:00
Party with DJDottir

SPEAKERS

Maxim Salnikov
Applied AI Engineer
Microsoft Norway
LinkedIn

Bio
Maxim Salnikov is a tech and cloud community enthusiast based in Oslo. With over two decades of experience as a web developer, he shares his extensive knowledge of the web platform, cloud computing, and AI by speaking at and providing training for developer events worldwide. By day, Maxim plays a crucial role in supporting the development of cloud and AI solutions within European companies, serving as the Senior Solution Engineer at Microsoft focusing on the AI-native developer tools & platforms. During evenings, he can be found running events for Norway’s largest web and cloud development communities. Maxim is passionate about exploring and experimenting with Generative AI possibilities, including AI-assisted development.

Talk Abstract
Title: AI Agents in Action: Transforming Work in Media & Entertainment
Abstract:
As the media and entertainment industry faces unprecedented change, organizations are turning to AI agents to boost productivity, address workforce capacity gaps, and unlock new value. This session explores how AI agents are reshaping roles, workflows, and leadership.

Daniel Catalán Matamoros
Professor & Director
UC3M MediaLab
LinkedIn

Bio
Daniel Catalán is a full professor of communication with nearly 20 years of experience in research and field work. He has held positions in major international organisations, including WHO, ECDC, and UNHCR, and currently directs the UC3M MediaLab. Author of over 200 publications with more than 4,000 citations (h-index = 34), he has led and participated in numerous national and international research projects. His work focuses on media effects, health misinformation, risk communication, and public understanding of digital technologies. In October 2025, he chaired the European Congress on Disinformation and Fact-Checking, which gathered more than 450 delegates from 58 countries.

Talk Abstract
Title: Beyond facts: Messaging strategies to counter health misinformation
Abstract:
Facts often fail to change perceptions or beliefs based on health misinformation. Our experimental research explores alternative messaging strategie, such as narrative storytelling and humour, to improve engagement, build trust, and foster dialogue with skeptical audiences. We examine how different ways of framing health messages affect credibility perceptions, emotional response, and behavioural intentions. Our results show that messages that feel personal and emotionally engaging make people more open and less defensive, and they work better than messages based only on data and statistics. The presentation will also share practical lessons for communicators and health organisations on how to create messages that are persuasive and trustworthy.

Zhixian Bao
AI Specialist
Google Norway
LinkedIn

Bio
Zhixian Bao works as an AI/ML specialist covering EMEA North at Google Cloud. Working in industry for 10 years, she is driven by a passion for using technology to empower both individuals and organizations to solve complex business challenges and create values.

Talk Abstract
Title: Multimodal AI Agents in the Media Industry
Abstract:
The session will explore the emerging role of Multimodality AI Agents, marking a critical shift in artificial intelligence from efficiency tools to drivers of innovation. The industry anticipates a transition where AI agents move beyond simple output generation to autonomous action. These advanced systems will leverage deep contextual understanding, real-time information access, and diverse modalities. The future trajectory of this technology points toward sophisticated multi-agent ecosystems capable of complex reasoning and tool utilization.

Bart Goethals
Computer Science Prof. & CEO at Froomle
University of Antwerp
LinkedIn

Bio
Bart Goethals is full professor at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Antwerp in Belgium where he leads the Adrem Data Lab, which performs fundamental research on artificial intelligence and data science.
He is founder and CEO of Froomle, a university spin-off company that provides a Recommender Systems Platform to the News and Media industry.
His primary research interests are the study of data mining and recommender systems. He received several awards for his theoretical studies on frequent itemset mining. He was general chair of IEEE ICDM 2012 and program chair of ECML PKDD 2008, and SIAM DM 2010 and will be program chair of ACM RecSys 2026.
He has served as general chair of the ECML PKDD Steering Committee, action editor of the Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery journal, and associate editor of the ACM Transactions on Recommender Systems, IEEE Transactions of Knowledge and Data Engineering, the Knowledge and Information Systems journal, and Recommender Systems Section Editor of Frontiers on Big Data, and he was Editor-in-Chief of the ACM SIGKDD Explorations newsletter.

Talk Abstract
Title: Conversational and Understandable News
Abstract:
In this talk, I present Froomle Voice, a personalised conversational news assistant that delivers news tailored to individual interests, and our recent work on making recommendations understandable — to increase transparency, user trust, and editorial oversight. The presentation will demonstrate these technologies and discuss their implications for responsible AI in the media sector.

Ingmar Weber
Alexander von Humboldt Professor
Saarland University
LinkedIn

Bio
Ingmar Weber is an Alexander von Humboldt Professor for AI and Chair for Societal Computing at Saarland University. His work looks at how data and AI can be used to understand and support social development. Previously, he held positions at the Qatar Computing Research Institute, Yahoo Research Barcelona, and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). He is among the 2% of most cited researchers and is currently leading a EUR 29M initiative to use novel data sources to measure societal phenomena and to support timely decision making.

Talk Abstract
Title: Slow AI: When the Journey is the Destination
Abstract: A common software design mantra is “don’t make the user think”. Using software should be effortless and help get the user’s job done as quickly as possible. While this is often desirable, this efficiency-first approach can be detrimental for democracies where engagement with societal discussions, rather than just ticking a box should be the goal. In our group, we explore how “slow AI” could be used to make people think more, not less. Examples range from using LLMs for informing voters during elections, to a debate-yourself setup to promote tolerance.

Victorina Demirel
Data & AI Activation and Governance Lead
Schibsted New Media
LinkedIn

Bio
Victorina works at the intersection of data, AI, and strategy at Schibsted, one of the Nordics’ leading media groups. She focuses on how media can harness AI responsibly through strong governance and strategic collaboration, ensuring user trust and the sustainability of independent journalism. Victorina’s work centers on redefining how trusted media engage audiences and navigate the uncertainty that characterizes today’s rapidly evolving information landscape.

Talk Abstract
Title: At the Crossroads of AI and Journalism: Competing, Collaborating, and Co-Creating the Future of Media
Abstract:As generative AI reshapes how information is created, distributed, and consumed, media companies stand at a defining crossroads. On one side, big tech platforms—OpenAI, Google, and others—are rapidly changing audience behavior and diverting traffic. On the other, they represent potential allies in building frameworks that safeguard independent journalism and empower users with trustworthy information.
In this talk, I will explore how we, as a modern media company, navigate this tension between competition and collaboration. How can we shape the rules of engagement to ensure media’s continued relevance and resilience in the age of AI? And how do we reimagine our role—not just as content providers, but as active co-creators of an information ecosystem where truth, trust, and technology can coexist?

Mor Naaman
Professor & Associate Dean
Cornell Tech
LinkedIn

Bio
I am the Don and Mibs Follett professor of Information Science at Cornell Tech where I lead the Social Technologies research group and serve as the associate dean for faculty affairs. Previously, I was an assistant professor at Rutgers SC&I, led a research team at Yahoo! Research Berkeley, and got a PhD from Stanford. Before all that, I played professional basketball in Israel. I sometimes consult or even co-found startups.
My research focus is on topics related to Technology, Media and Democracy, and in particular the trustworthiness of our information ecosystem. We use a wide range of tools—from machine learning, to computational social science, to online experiments, to qualitative methods—to understand and try to address these challenges, with an increasing focus on the impact of AI-mediated communication. Our sponsors over the years included, among others, Yahoo, Google, Facebook and the National Science Foundation.

Talk Abstract
Title: Integrating AI into Platform Writing Tasks? Not So Fast
Abstract:
Online platforms increasingly integrate LLM-based writing tools, raising questions about GenAI’s impact on individuals’ content production and outcomes. In this project, we had a unique opportunity to measure the impact of such tool introduced by Change.org, an online petition platform. The results provide causal evidence that in-platform AI writing tools can profoundly reshape online content, but the tools practical utility for improving desired outcomes may be less beneficial than anticipated, and they introduce unintended consequences like content homogenization. This finding adds to a growing body of work showing the potential impact of AI-mediation communication on media.

Jill Walker Rettberg
Professor & Co-Director
Center for Digital Narrative
LinkedIn

Bio
Jill Walker Rettberg is Professor of Digital Culture and Co-Director of the Center for Digital Narrative at the University of Bergen. She leads the project AI STORIES: Narrative Archetypes of Artificial Intelligence, which is funded by an ERC Advanced Grant from the European Research Council. Jill’s books include Machine Vision: How Algorithms are Changing the Way We See the World (Polity 2023) and Seeing Ourselves Through Technology: How We Use Selfies, Blogs and Wearable Devices to See and Shape Ourselves (2014). She is currently a member of an expert committee for Teknologirådet’s report on artificial intimacy, and is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and of the Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences.

Talk Abstract
Title: AI-generated stories: the nostalgia of large language models
Abstract: What are the dominant narratives of generative AI, and what is at stake in their circulation? The AI STORIES project starts from the hypothesis that LLMs replicate and perhaps increase certain narrative patterns, which could mean that we lose diversity in storytelling. Research so far suggests this is true – the thousands of AI-generated stories we have analysed in the AI STORIES project emphasise stability and nostalgia, telling remarkably similar stories of threatened communities saved by reconnecting with heritage. LLMs also excel at simile and at affirmation, generating additive texts – more and more and more – rather than critical analysis. What does this mean for media, journalism and research?

Stefan Kollinger
Chief Innovation Officer
ORF
LinkedIn

Bio
Stefan Kollinger is an experienced professional in the field of media technology and digitalization, currently serving as the Chief Innovation Officer at ORF. In this role Stefan focuses on leading strategic initiatives from AI to Smart Producing to promote technological innovations and integrate digital solutions into the company’s existing operational processes. His work involves close collaboration with various departments to ensure that ORF remains at the forefront of digital transformation and efficiently uses the latest technologies to enhance program quality and reach.

Talk Abstract
Title: AI DAY at ORF; Where Technology Meets Content
Abstract:
At the Media Futures event, Stefan Kollinger will present strategic action fields and emerging opportunities for integrating artificial intelligence into content creation, production, and distribution at ORF. His talk explores how AI can drive innovation, enhance storytelling, and open new pathways for public media in a rapidly evolving digital ecosystem where technology and creativity meet to shape the future.

Snorre Alvsvåg
Backend Developer
TV2
LinkedIn

Lubos Steskal
Strategic AI Advisor
TV2
LinkedIn

Nataliya Nymo
Senior UX Designer
Vizrt
LinkedIn

Yuki Onishi
Researcher
MediaFutures
LinkedIn

Adane Tarekegn
Researcher
MediaFutures
LinkedIn

Morten Langfeldt Dahlback
Head of Innovation & Tech
Faktisk.no
LinkedIn

PANEL SESSION

Jan Stian Vold
Utviklingsredaktør
Bergens Tidende
LinkedIn

Erik Bonesvoll
Utviklingsredaktør
Amedia
LinkedIn

Magnus Aabech
Utviklingsredaktør
DN Media Group
LinkedIn

Chris Ronald Hermansen
Head of Editorial AI
TV2
LinkedIn

Victorina Demirel
Data & AI Activation and Governance Lead
Schibsted New Media
LinkedIn

WELCOMING NOTE

Lars Nyre
Professor & Deputy Leader
Infomedia, UiB
LinkedIn

Christian Birkeland
Chief Digital Officer
TV2
LinkedIn

Christoph Trattner
Professor & Director
MediaFutures
LinkedIn

Synnøve Kristine Nepstad Bendixsen
Dean SV-Faculty
UiB
LinkedIn

MODERATION

Christopher Senf
Innovation Coordinator
MediaFutures & UiB
LinkedIn

Anastasiia Klimashevskaia
Researcher
MediaFutures & UiB
LinkedIn

Alain Starke
Assistant Professor
MediaFutures & UvA
LinkedIn

DEMOS

Name
Title

Professor Andreas L. Opdahl & Øyvind Skjervheim
Demokratibasen: Data-Driven Democracy in Action

Dr. Yuki Onishi
Gaze Tracking Project with TV2 and Vizrt

Tobias Jovall Wessel
Verified Satirical Reframing: AI Reframing with Fact-Checking as a Tool for Next-Generation Journalism

Vegard Erlend Bolstad
Interactive Podcast Project: SuperPods

POSTERS

Tobias Jovall Wessel
Using Large Language Models to ‘Lighten the Mood’:Satirically Reframing News Recommendations to Reduce News Avoidance

Mapalo Kayeyi
Still More of The Same: A Longitudinal Evaluation on Ceiling Effects in a New Recommender System

Halvor Nedrebø
Enriching User Recommendation Experience Through Incorporation of Sequential Recommendation

Olav Gangenes
Analysis of User Interactions with a Personalized News Recommender System

Marlene Holzleitner, Dietmar Jannach
Controlled Personalization in Legacy Media Online Services: A Case Study in News Recommendation

Adane Tarekegn
Automated News Clip Generation via Robust Video Summarization

Peter Røysland Aarnes
Numerical Perturbations to Probe Language Models for Veracity Prediction

Bilal Mahmood
LLM-Powered Tool to Support Editors & Journalists Select Related News Articles

Vegard Steinhaug Brevik
A Hybrid Approach to Mitigate Popularity Bias in Recommender Systems

Jeng Jia-Hua
The role of GPT as an adaptive technology in climate change journalism

Yuki Onishi
Designing User-centric TV Production Control Rooms: from Eye-gaze to Understanding Decision-making.

Vegard Erlend Bolstad
SuperPods

Khadiga Seddik
Can style personalization, rather than political personalization, increase engagement with diverse political news?

Jiajing Wan
Personalizing News Headlines with Retrieval-Augmented Generation

Yelyzaveta Lysova
When AI Becomes a Chef: Leveraging LLMs to Generate and Promote Healthy Recipes on Online News Platforms

Svenja Lys Forstner
Reducing selective news avoidance of young audiences with personalized content adaptations and explanations

LOCATION

Scandic Ørnen is located at Lars Hilles Gate 18, right next to the main bus terminal.The closest public transport stop is “Bergen Busstasjon”, the main bus terminal.

Intelligente Bergen 2025
2025-11-06 09:00 - 15:00 | Universitetsaulaen i Bergen
UiB AI invites you to the fourth edition of the annual conference Intelligente Bergen, on Thursday, November 6. The title of this year’s conference is “Artificial Intelligence – Human Transformation”. The conference will be held in Norwegian.
Intelligente Bergen brings together businesses, the public sector, researchers, and students in the Bergen region to showcase research on and applications of artificial intelligence. The conference takes place in the University Aula, Muséplassen 3 (entrance via the Museum Garden, toward the Student Center).
The conference explores new opportunities for collaboration and opens dialogue across disciplines and sectors. The goal is to connect researchers, industry, students, and the public sector, and to show how AI is being used, studied, and developed across a wide range of sectors in the region. The 2025 conference will place special emphasis on transformation and adaptation.
The conference is free of charge, but requires registration.Register for Intelligente Bergen 2025 here.
Program
08:15–09:00 – Registration and coffee/teaEntrance through the Museum Garden or via Godt Brød and down the stairs. Find your name badge and go up one floor for coffee/tea and to meet other attendees.
09:00–10:10 – Introduction and keynote talks

Dag Stenvoll, Coordinator for UiB AI: “AI and Transformation: Intelligente Bergen 2025”

Morten Goodwin, Professor at the University of Agder: “Artificial Intelligence: A New Era for Humanity”

Nora Gjøen-Gjøsæter, Head of Artificial Intelligence at Kantega: “What’s Preventing Western Norway Companies from Creating Value with AI?”

10:10–10:40 – Break
10:40–11:30 – Artificial Intelligence and Transformation, Part 1

Pål A. Reiersgaard, Area Manager for Platform and Head of Technology & Development, Lerøy Seafood Group: “AI Accelerating the Ocean Industries”

Kjetil Århus, Director of Digitalization, City of Bergen: “AI and Municipal Transformation”

Kjetil Høydal, Innovation Engineer, Norwegian Defence Materiel Agency: “Drones – A Paradigm Shift in the Defense Sector”

11:30–12:15 – Bergen’s New AI Center: AI-LEARNIn June, the Research Council of Norway awarded NOK 200 million to the Artificial Intelligence Centre for the Empowerment of Human Learning, as part of the national AI initiative. The center is led by the University of Bergen (UiB) and NTNU and includes 30 partners.
Speakers in this session include Barbara Wasson (UiB, Center Director), Alexander Joyce (KS/Vestfold County Council), Øystein Nordberg (Midlaier AS), and Ingunn Ness (SLATE), discussing the potential of such a center for the Bergen region.
12:15–13:00 – Lunch
13:00–13:45 – Artificial Intelligence and Transformation, Part 2

Helene Frihammer, Regional Director, NHO Vestland: “Let’s Hope AI Takes Our Jobs!”

Susan Johnsen, Former Managing Director, Allegro: “AI Took Our Jobs”

Benedicte Mosby Irgens, Associate Professor of Japanese Language and Linguistics, UiB: “Foreign Languages and the New Language Technologies”

Vegard Slettvoll, Medical Student, UiB: “AI in Health and Healthcare: Opportunities and Challenges”

Damoun Nassehi, Associate Professor, Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care, UiB: “Socrates AI”

Xieqi Shi, Professor of Dentistry, UiB: “Deep Learning in Dental Radiological Diagnostics”

13:45–14:30 – AI as a Cause and Tool for TransformationThe closing panel discussion addresses key issues that emerged throughout the day. How can AI help meet the need for transformation—caused by factors like an aging population and the green transition? And how does the rapid development of AI itself demand transformation in our workplaces and society at large?
Panelists:

Odd Gurvin, Senior Consultant, Innovation Infrastructure, Vestland County Council

Nora Gjøen-Gjøsæter, Head of Artificial Intelligence, Kantega

Pål Grønås Drange, Associate Professor, Department of Informatics, UiBModerator: Inge Jonassen, Professor/Department Head and Chair of the UiB AI Steering Group

14:30–15:00 – Fruit and Networking

Beyond Accuracy: Exploring Fairness and Generative AI in (News) Recommender Systems
2025-10-24 12:00 - 13:00 | SFI MediaFutures, MCB
We want to invite to a lunch seminar with Thomas E. Kolb, PhD candidate from TU Wien (Austria) and member of the CDL-RecSys.
Thomas is visiting MediaFutures for two months (until November 14) as part of an Erasmus traineeship. His research focuses on news recommender systems, particularly on fairness and bias over time.
Friday, 24th of October, Thomas will present his recent work and share insights from his ongoing research in this area.
Bio:
Thomas is conducting research as part of his Ph.D. on the subject of long-term dynamics of bias and fairness in cross-domain recommender Systems. To analyse these dynamics in a real world environment his lab works together with a company within the domain of news, books and lifestyle. The exploration of long-term dynamics in this field has immense potential for the development of fairer recommender systems. He firmly believes in the significance of providing the research community with fresh insights to foster the creation of responsible and fair recommender systems.
Abstract:
Recommender systems have become a key technology in digital media environments, yet their success cannot be measured by accuracy alone. In this talk, Thomas E. Kolb will first provide an overview of the lab’s current research activities across domains such as, e-commerce, fashion, and news. He will then present his past and current work on evaluating and designing recommender systems from a beyond-accuracy perspective, including insights on what makes up a “good reading recommendation” in news contexts based on the lab’s industry collaborations. The talk concludes with an outlook on recent trends in conversational and generative recommender systems, based on insights from his tutorial at the ACM Recommender Systems Conference.
You can follow the talk live by joining zoom: https://uib.zoom.us/j/69085222716?pwd=[REDACTED]

Recommender Systems and Nudges for Healthier Food Choice
2025-10-23 09:15 - 15:00 | Auditorium 2 Jussbygget
We are pleased to invite you to the trial lecture and public defence of Ayoub el Majjodi, PhD candidate at SFI MediaFutures.
Date: 23 OctoberVenue: Auditorium 2 Jussbygget, UiB
Time: 9:15
PhD Thesis:Recommender Systems and Nudges for Healthier Food Choices
Thesis Summary:
Recommender systems are widely used to address the challenge of information overload by presenting users with the most relevant content through personalization techniques. In the food domain, decision-making is particularly complex due to the multifaceted nature of food choices, which are influenced by a range of individual, contextual, and environmental factors. Despite this complexity, recommender systems have shown considerable promise in modeling real world food preferences and supporting users in navigating food related decisions. Their adoption in food applications has been steadily increasing, reflecting the growing importance and difficulty of making informed, personalized, and health-conscious dietary choices. Nonetheless, these systems have often been shown to generate predom- inantly popular food options, which tend to be less healthy. As users interact with such systems, they are repeatedly exposed to unhealthy choices, which in turn reinforces their preferences for these items. This feedback loop causes algorithms to prioritize popular yet nutritionally poor options, ultimately amplifying unhealthy eating behaviors with potential negative implications for public health. At the same time, digital nudging has emerged as a promising strategy for influencing user behavior in subtle and non intrusive ways. How- ever, limited research has investigated how digital nudges and recommender systems can be effectively combined particularly in user-centered settings aimed at supporting informed decision-making and promoting behavioral change. To address this gap, this thesis adopts a Design Science Research methodology to design, implement, and evaluate food recommender systems augmented with digital nudges. The research is documented across several peer-reviewed manuscripts and supported by both offline algorithmic evaluations and online user experiments. These studies examine how various preference elicitation methods, nudging techniques, and user characteristics such as food knowledge and dietary goals interact to shape user experience and behavior. The findings reveal that several nudging techniques warrant further investigation in the con- text of food recommender systems, particularly through user-centric evaluation approaches. Moreover, while digital nudges can support healthier food choices, their effectiveness varies depending on personalization, user familiarity, and system design. Interestingly, non-personalized recommendations with clear nutritional labeling were often more effective in encouraging healthy decisions than personalized options. Additionally, the interplay between preference elicitation methods, user knowledge, and nudging strate- gies significantly influenced user choices, interactions, and overall experience. This thesis contributes to the fields of recommender systems and persuasive technologies by demonstrating how digital nudges and system design features jointly influence health related decision-making. It emphasizes the importance of user-centric evaluation and lays the foundation for future research on adaptive nudging, long-term behavior change, and real- world deployments in food-related digital platforms.
Opponents:Associate Professor Alan Said, University of Gothenburg, SwedenAssistant Professor Julia Neidhardt, TU Vienna, Austria
Chair of the Committee:Associate Professor Erik Knudsen, Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen
Defense Chair:Associate Professor Samia Touileb, Research Leader at the Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen

Talks by Google Deepmind researcher
2025-10-22 09:15 - 14:00 | UiB Bergen, Norway
SFI MediaFutures hosts two talks with Google Deepmind researcher Nitesh Goyal, invited and introduced by work package 4 co-leader professor Morten Fjeld.
Tesh (Nitesh) Goyal leads research at the intersection of AI and Safety at Google Deepmind. His work at Google has led to the launch of ML based tools like SynthID to enable AI Literacy, AIStudio and MakerSuite to enable creatives for leveraging AI to bring their ideas to life, Harassment Manager to empower targets of online harassment, ML based moderation to reduce online toxic content production on platforms like OpenWeb, and multiple NLP based tools that reduce biased sensemaking. He received his MSc in Computer Science from UC, Berkeley and RWTH Aachen, prior to receiving his PhD from Cornell University in Information Science. His research has been supported by the German Govt., and National Science Foundation. Frequently collaborating with industry (Google Research, Yahoo Labs, HP Labs, Bloomberg Labs), he has published in top-tier HCI venues (eg. CHI, CSCW, FAccT), received three best paper honorable mention awards (CHI, CSCW) and his work is frequently covered in the press. Tesh also serves on the ACM SIGCHI Steering Committee, as appointed Adjunct Professor at New York University and Columbia University, and as ACM Distinguished Speaker.

Talk 1: Wednesday 22 October 09:15 – 10:00 : Designing AI Responsibly | Case Studies from Practice
Location: Egget/UiB Auditorium
As an HCI Researcher, my work pushes boundaries for inclusive AI/ML models. In this talk I will share case studies about building these models and challenges in their large scale adoption. Some of these models are commonly used to detect toxicity in online conversations. These models are trained on datasets annotated by human raters and require relatively large datasets. In the first case study, I will explore how raters’ self-described identities impact how they annotate toxicity in online comments. In a second case study, I will share how our collective scholarship presents a gap at evaluating Responsible AI tools that inspect such AI/ML models. I will end with recommendations for an inclusive and equitable RAI practice.

Talk 2: Wednesday 22 October 13:00- 14:00 : Designing for Sensemaking Translucence | A Crime-Solving Case Study
Location: Room Stortinget, UiB
Solving crimes correctly is a critical and life-altering problem where intelligence analysts are constantly struggling against their biases. Despite recurring themes of how AI should be designed responsibly to support these use cases/users in 50+ years of scholarship, we have barely started to scratch the surface. In this lecture, I introduce the notion of Sensemaking Translucence into biases, fairness and equity related challenges. I then provide examples of how AI can support Sensemaking Translucence. My work finally makes the case that it is important to design from a human centered perspective by leveraging AI to support these Human AI Collaboration workflows.
For questions please contact: Morten.Fjeld@uib.no

The 28th ACM SIGCHI Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing
2025-10-18 08:00 - 2025-10-22 17:00 | Bergen
CSCW is the premier venue for research in the design and use of technologies that affect groups, organizations, communities, and networks. Bringing together top researchers and practitioners, CSCW explores the technical, social, material, and theoretical challenges of designing technology to support collaborative work and life activities.
The 28th ACM SIGCHI Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW) will be held in Bergen, Norway on October 18 — 22, 2025. MediaFutures is one of the sponsors of the conference. WP4 leader Morten Fjeld is one of the industry and sponsorship chairs, and Frode Guribye one of the local organisation chairs.
Opening Keynote: Kari Kuutti
Kari Kuutti is a professor emeritus (HCI & CSCW) at INTERACT research unit in the University of Oulu, Finland. Back in 1996, his professorship was the first one in Finland dedicated to HCI and CSCW. He has also served as a professor at the Department of Computer Science of Helsinki University of Technology (currently Aalto University), and as an adjunct professor at Helsinki University of Arts and Design (currently a part of Aalto University) and at the Department of Education at University of Helsinki. He has been a visiting scholar at the Design School in the Polytechnic University of Hong Kong and at the Interaction Design Centre in the University of Limerick. 2020 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award by the European Society of Socially Embedded Technology (EUSSET).
Kuutti has published over 120 research articles, and he is recognized for his efforts to bring practice-based approaches into the analysis and design of cooperative systems, especially for his promotion of cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) for the purpose. He has been actively involved both in national and in European research collaboration. A large part of his work has been linked to developing support for collaborative and distributed design efforts, not only academically but also with industrial partners, such as Airbus and Nokia Mobile Phones.
Closing Keynote: Gina Neff
Gina Neff is the Professor of Responsible AI at Queen Mary University London. She runs the Minderoo Centre for Technology & Democracy at the University of Cambridge. She is the Deputy Chief Executive Officer for UKRI Responsible AI UK and Associate Director of the ESRC Digital Good Network.
Professor Neff serves on the boards of the Social Science Research Council, the Institute for the Future of Work and Reset.tech. She holds a doctorate in sociology and undergraduate degrees in Economics and Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, all from Columbia University. Her books include Venture Labor (MIT Press 2012), Self-Tracking (MIT Press 2016) and Human-Centered Data Science (MIT Press 2022).
Her academic research has won both engineering and social sciences awards. Oxford awarded her a 2019 Teaching Excellence Award for her leadership of doctoral programmes at the Oxford Internet Institute. She led the team that won the 2021 Webby for the best educational website on the Internet for the A to Z of AI, which reached over one million people in 17 different languages as part of Google’s AI skills training.

The program info is available on the SIGCHI web app, which you will be able to use for easier planning.
For workshops, see: https://cscw.acm.org/2025/index.php/workshops/
Note: All presentations in the main room (Peer Gynt-salen) will be livestreamed and will be viewable by both in-person and virtual attendees.

Disinformation and Trust in Science in the U.S. and Beyond
2025-10-14 14:00 - 15:00 | Årstadveien 17
2025 has been a year of unprecedented cuts to global development aid, significant political tensions, and increased attacks on science and academia. What are the implications of these developments for health globally, health research, and trust in science in general?
The Bergen Centre for Ethics and Priority Setting in Health (BCEPS) has invited Professor Ezekiel Emanuel from the University of Pennsylvania, a world-leading bioethicist, to shed light on recent changes and current impacts of this challenging political climate on disinformation and trust in science, especially in the context of health research and policy.
This is a unique chance to hear directly from a leading American researcher, physician, and writer, who has also been instrumental in US health policy under the Obama and Biden administrations. He contributes actively to the public debate about current US policies in the press and social media. After the presentation, there will be time for a Q&A session with the audience.
The event will be held in English and is free and open to the public.
TIME: 14 October, kl. 1400 – 1500
PLACE: Alrek (Årstadveien 17), room Midgard,
About Professor Ezekiel (Zeke) Emanuel
Professor Emanuel received his MD from Harvard Medical School and his PhD in Political Philosophy from Harvard University. He is a practicing breast oncologist and currently serves as Vice Provost for Global Initiatives and Chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a special advisor to WHO Director General Dr. Tedros and previously served as a Special Advisor for Health Policy under President Obama, where he was instrumental in drafting the Affordable Care Act. Later, he served on the Biden-Harris Transition Covid Advisory Board. Professor Emanuel has published widely in leading scientific journals and has been described as the most cited bioethicist ever. He also contributes regularly to the New York Times. Professor Emanuel is a research team leader within the Bergen Centre of Ethics and Priority Setting in Health at the University of Bergen.

Research Ethics Day at the UiB 2025
2025-10-03 09:00 - 12:00 | Storsalen, Nygårdsgaten 5, University of Bergen, 5015 Bergen
It is fundamental for a knowledge-based society that the research underpinning policy is trustworthy. It is thus crucial that research is conducted to the highest ethical standards. To increase awareness of the importance of research ethics at the University of Bergen, we have established an annual research ethics day. This year’s conference has the main theme of ‘Research Ethics After AI.’ We look forward to a day of meaningful discussion on this important topic.
Register here by latest 02.10.2025 – 16.00

RESEARCH ETHICS AFTER AI
PROGRAMME

08.30
Light breakfast buffet

09.00
Introduction of today´s programme: Marit Bakke, Professor, Dean, Faculty of Medicine, UiB, and Chair of the Programme Committee

09.05
Welcome address: Kjell Morten Myhr, Professor, Vice Rector for Research and Innovation, UiB

09.10
Session 1: Big, Biased, and Synthetic: Data after AI
How is AI changing and challenging practices of data collection, generation and validation?
Keynote Anna Feigenbaum, Professor of Media and Digital Storytelling, School of Social & Political Sciences, University of Glasgow
Title: Dancing with Robots? AI, Participation and Ethical Interactivity.
A conversation:

Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Postdoctoral Fellow, Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design, UiB

Anna Feigenbaum, Professor of Media and Digital Storytelling, School of Social & Political Sciences, University of Glasgow

Torger Kielland, Professor, Faculty of Law, UiB.

Helge Ræder, Professor, Vice Dean for Innovation, Faculty of Medicine, UiB

Moderator: Gabriele de Seta, Researcher and Project Leader, Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies, Faculty of Humanities, UiB

10.00
Break

10.20
Session 2: Trust in the black box: Data Analysis after AI
How is AI changing and challenging practices of data analysis?
A conversation:

Julien Brajard, Senior Researcher, Climate Modeling, NERSC.

Pekka Parviainen, Associate Professor, Machine Learning Group, Department of Informatics, Faculty of Science and Technology, UiB.

Anne Sigrid Refsum, Postdoctoral Fellow, AI STORIES project, Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies, Faculty of Humanities, UiB

Moderator: Nathalie Reuter, Professor, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Technology, UiB

11.10
Session 3: Building Ethical Literacy: Towards a New Era of Research Ethics.
How do we prepare researchers for an AI-driven research landscape?
Presentation by: Lina Harder, PhD Candidate, Project: Extending Digital Narrative, Center for Digital Narrative, Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies, Faculty of Humanities, UiB
A conversation:

Anders Goksøyr, Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, UiB and Deputy Member of the National Committee for Research Ethics in Science and Technology – NENT.
Kari Steen-Johnsen, Research Professor, Institute for Social Research, UiO and Deputy chair of the National Committee for Research Ethics in the Social Sciences and the Humanities – NESH
Ingrid Miljeteig, Professor, Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, UiB and Deputy Member of the National Research Ethics Committees- NEM

Moderator: Ragna Aarli, Professor, Faculty of Law, UiB

12.00
Closing remarks: Marit Bakke, Professor, Dean, Faculty of Medicine, UiB, and Chair of the Programme Committee

12.05
Lunch

Human-AI Interaction for video Content: Designing and Engineering Multimodal Conversational Agents
2025-09-29 09:15 - 14:00 | Jusbygget, Auditorium 3
Our PhD Candidate Peter Andrews will defend his thesis on September 29th at the University of Bergen.
Trial lecture starts at 09:15 and the defense at 10.30.
We want to encourage you to attend his trial lecture and defense, and learn more about HCI.
Title:
Human-AI Interaction for video Content: Designing and Engineering Multimodal Conversational Agents
Abstract:

As young adults increasingly shift away from conventional news sources, interactive and AI-driven media present a new frontier for their engagement in news consumption. Young adults often prefer more interactive video content on streaming platforms, challenging the traditional model of passive video consumption. Second screening, interacting with a second device while watching a primary display, has emerged to satisfy the need for interaction and support with additional content and context. However, second screening can hinder comprehension, revealing the need to synchronize the experience.

This thesis unifies the second screening experience with Computer Vision (CV) and Deep Learning (DL), thereby building an interactive video framework following the textit{From Video to Data} $to$ textit{From Data to Narrative} $to$ textit{From Narrative to Interaction} paradigm. The result is a Multimodal Conversational Agent (MCA) that can hyper-contextualize video content. This video framework encompasses three research questions: 1) How can recent advances in computer vision and artificial intelligence facilitate interaction with video content? 2) How can interactive video increase subjective understanding of the content? 3) How do young adults perceive the user experience of interactive video for news broadcasts? Answering these questions gives a better grasp of what is needed to build an end-to-end interactive video framework with AI. At the same time, empirical research can show how the capabilities of the framework can improve user experience and comprehension.

To address these questions, I develop prototypes for interactive video in sports (football) and politics. I approached the video framework in a modular manner with four in-house design prototypes – FootyVision, the Automated Commentary System (ACS), AiCommentator, and AiModerator. Collectively, these four prototypes demonstrate how CV- and NLP-based event detection and LLM-powered MCAs can synchronize and facilitate real-time interaction with video content. I tested prototypes in lab-based mixed method studies and found that interactive video with MCA can enhance engagement, immersion, and subjective understanding. However, a Human-AI Interaction (HAI) trade-off between automation and user control occurs. While a high degree of automation can tightly synchronize the experience, it comes at the cost of user control. The affordances of MCA include multimodal feedback and remediation. Multimodal feedback supports subjective understanding, which aligns with the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (CTML). Remediation involves repurposing traditional roles in innovative ways. MCAs achieve this by transforming sports commentators and political moderators into remediated personas, thus leading to increased engagement. Moreover, MCAs can also push the user into a more objective viewing state, highlighting a trade-off between objectivity and emotional involvement. Finally, trust is paramount for high-stakes environments where transparency is crucial.

Overall, my research challenges traditional linear media by integrating CV, DL, and NLP into an interactive framework that facilitates on-demand information augmented by the information space. However, future systems must address key concerns regarding the aforementioned trade-offs and the management of cognitive load. I recommend variable autonomy and transparency to give the user control over the experience, reinforcing both trust and understanding through Human-Centered AI (HCAI). By synthesizing these findings in human-AI interaction (HAI) and multimedia learning frameworks, my work provides valuable insights for researchers, developers, and broadcasters looking to engage the next generation of news consumers through interactive video.

Opponents:

Dr. (Research Director, DR2) Petra Isenberg , Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire des Sciences du Numérique, Université Paris-Saclay
Prof Huamin Qu, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Head of committee
Prof Miroslav Bachinski
Moderator of the defense
Prof Bjørnar Tessem

The future of mobile human-machine interaction
2025-09-16 16:30 - 18:00 | Realfagbygget, Auditorium 2 (basement), Allegaten 41
The use of portable devices is now ubiquitous in our society. Our daily lives are shaped by ever-evolving interactive devices and applications from touch-based smartwatches and tablets to large digital screens.
Although smart devices like laptops, tablets, and smartphones are mobile, users are usually either stationary or risk their physical safety by using such devices while moving. The health consequences of today’s mobile devices are well documented. These include, among other things, how a predominantly sedentary lifestyle affects health and well-being.
This lecture will present innovative thinking, design, and engineering in the field of mobile human-computer interaction (HCI). At the end, there will be time for questions from the audience.

Date: Tuesday, September 16, 2025
Location: Realfagbygget, Auditorium 2 (basement), Allegaten 41
Time: The lecture starts at 16:30 Light refreshments will be served outside the auditorium from 16:00

The meeting is open to everyone and will be in Norwegian.
About the Speaker
Morten Fjeld is a professor in human-computer interaction (HCI) at the University of Bergen and Chalmers University of Technology. He researches interactive systems with a focus on tangible and mobile interaction. Fjeld holds a double master’s degree in applied mathematics from NTNU and ENSIMAG Grenoble, as well as a PhD from ETH Zurich, where he also received the ETH medal in 2002. He has been a visiting professor in Singapore, Japan, and Switzerland, and has extensive industry experience in fluid mechanics, simulators, and user interfaces.

Innovasjonsuken OPP - 2025
2025-09-15 08:00 - 2025-09-21 17:00 | Bergen
This is Vestlands innovation festival and platform for networking and sharing knowledge. OPP celebrates each year entrepreneurship together with several local partners to highlight their work on innovation. In short, OPP is gathering events from local innovative companies during these two weeks to focus on how innovation can look like in the region of Vestlandet.
We want to feature some of these events which are relevant for MediaFutures followers and supports:
Demo Day Vestlandet
Wednesday 17.09 kl. 12:00 – 18:00
Thormøhlensgate 51
Demo Day Vestlandet annually connects good ideas with capital. Here, selected startup companies from Vestlandet get the opportunity to pitch their ideas in front of a packed audience of investors. A whole day is filled with presentations and exciting meetings. Demo Day Vestlandet is a unique meeting place for you who are an early-stage investor. Every year, 150 investors and funds gather for a party day in Bergen in connection with the OPP Innovation Week. We invite the most exciting, and investor-ready, companies in the west (Rogaland, Vestland and Møre og Romsdal) to a day filled with exciting meetings, presentations and entertainment. Here you get insight into what is happening in the early-stage investor environment and which ideas and companies are worth investing in. You also get the opportunity to meet other investors to expand your network and connections.
UiB Innovation Day: 200 years of research and innovation
Friday 19.09 kl. 09:00 – 15:00
Læringsarena, UiB, Nygårdsgaten 5
On September 19, the University of Bergen is pleased to invite you to UiB Innovation Day, a meeting place for researchers, students and partners from the business and public sectors in the region. The day will focus on research and innovation at all UiB faculties, where we will showcase some of the most exciting projects being developed at UiB with the goal of strengthening collaboration between research and the society around us. The Innovation Day will also mark 200 years of research and innovation in Bergen, including an anniversary exhibition on the occasion of the University Museum of Bergen’s 200th anniversary.
PopOPP
Friday 19.09 kl. 16:30 – Saturday 20.09 kl. 00:00
Marineholmen
On Friday, September 19, students and young adults with drive and ideas will gather for a festival experience a little out of the ordinary. It’s about progress. About creating. About connecting to something bigger. What can you expect? Scenes. Flavors. Atmospheres. People you haven’t met before. Questions you haven’t asked yet. And hopefully a lot of answers.

Book launch: Teen Boys and their Smartphones as Worldmaking Devices
2025-09-05 12:15 - 14:00 | SFI MediaFutures, MCB
Welcome to the launch of Dr. John Magnus R. Dahl’s book : Teen Boys and their Smartphones as Worldmaking Devices. 5th of September we invite to an event in which our previous Postdoctoral researcher Dahl presents how he spent two years on ethnographic fieldwork, following six teenage boys on- and offline to find out how they use their smartphones to create a world for themselves and their peers.
He asked himself: What is it like to be a young man in the age of the smartphone?
He concludes, among other things, that the smartphone is a crucial tool for creating the kinds of social relationships the boys consider important, and thus a way to increase freedom and agency in their own lives. Furthermore, he shows that this is especially significant for minority boys: queer boys and boys with immigrant backgrounds use their phones differently than straight, white boys.
John Magnus R. Dahl
The launch will take the form of a book conversation between Dahl and Professor Kristine Jørgensen, project leader of Understanding Masculinity in Gaming, followed by an opportunity for questions. The conversation will be held in English. and light refreshments will be served.
The book is published by Palgrave Macmillan and is based on the research Dahl conducted as a postdoctoral fellow at MediaFutures (UiB) from 2021 to 2024. He is now employed as Assistant Professor at the University of Copenhagen.
The e-book is available here, and a longer article about the book’s findings can be read here (in Norwegian).

UiB AI #16 Trustworthy AI
2025-09-02 09:00 - 12:00 | Storsalen, Nygårdsgaten 5 (første etasje)
Over the past decade, artificial intelligence has achieved major technological breakthroughs and has become part of research, education and working life. However, for AI to gain widespread acceptance in society, it is crucial that the systems that use artificial intelligence are reliable. Today’s AI systems lack scientific definitions and clear criteria for values such as fairness, responsibility, security, privacy and other important ethical aspects. There are also serious weaknesses in the legal frameworks within which AI systems operate, as well as problems with the accuracy and robustness of the systems.
To address these challenges and strengthen high-quality AI research at UiB, the Trond Mohn Research Foundation (TMF) and the University of Bergen have developed and co-financed the Trustworthy AI research programme. This seminar will present insights from this research programme.
The seminar is held in English.
PROGRAMME
09:00 Coffee/tea and mingling
09:15 Welcome and today’s programme. TBC
09:20 “The Trustworthy AI research programme”. NN, Trond Mohn Research Foundation & Barbara Wasson, TAIS
09:35 “Algorithmic Foundations of Trustworthy AI”. Fedor Fomin from the Department of Informatics, UiB & Thomas Ågotnes, Department of Information Science & Media Studies
09:55 “”TRUSTworthy AI models to predict progression to complications in patients with Diabetes”. Valeriya Lyssenko from the Mohn Research Center for Diabetes Precision Medicine, UiB & Iain Johnston, Department of Mathematics
10:15 Break and coffee
10:30 “Artificial Intelligence in Education: Layers of Trust”, Barbara Wasson & Fride Klykken, Centre for the Science of Learning & Technology (SLATE) & Alessia Di Muro, Faculty of Law
10:50 “PANEL “Conceptions of Trust & Trustworthy AI”, Participants TBD, Barbara Wasson (moderator)
11:15 Discussion
11:30ish Light lunch and mingling
Moderator: Dag Stenvoll, coordinator of UiB AI

CANCELLED: MediaFutures Lunch seminar with Assistant Professor Jeremy Barnes
2025-09-01 12:00 - 13:00 | SFI MediaFutures, MCB
Dear all,
The upcoming seminar with Jeremy Barnes is cancelled. Unfortunately, our invited guest has fallen ill and is unable to travel to Bergen to join us. We were very much looking forward to the discussions and insights he was planning to share, and we hope to reschedule his visit at a later date. Thank you all for your interest in the seminars, and I hope to see you at other future events. Have a great week!

WP5 invites to a MediaFutures lunch seminar with Assistant Professor Jeremy Barnes, IXA Taldea / HiTZ Zentroa, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU).

Tittel: Challenges for automatic summarization evaluation in low-resource languages

Abstract:
In this talk, I will describe a transferable methodology for determining how effective available metrics are at identifying quality differences in automatic news summary quality in Basque and Spanish. After collecting a metevaluation dataset (BASSE) to evaluate five criteria (coherence, consistency, fluency, relevance, and 5W1H), we benchmark how well automatic evaluation metrics and LLM judges are able to capture differences in these criteria. Our results suggest that proprietary LLM judge models currently give the most consistent results across criteria, while a careful combination of automatic metrics can give similar results.

The event will also be streamed. Click here to join digitally: https://uib.zoom.us/j/65787045468?pwd=[REDACTED]

Towards Responsible AI for Local Journalism
2025-08-27 14:15 - 16:00 | SFI MediaFutures, MCB
We hereby invite you to a talk by Dr. Reshmi Pillai, Vrije University, Amsterdam, on responsible AI for local journalism where she presents an ongoing research project. The studies include a graph-based retrieval augmented generation for news background information, text simplification of news reports, usage of LLM personas for news feedback for journalists.

About Reshmi Pillai:

Dr Reshmi Pillai is a Post-doctoral Research Associate in the Department of Communication Science at the Vrije University Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in the project “Towards Responsible AI for Local Journalism”. Earlier, she was a Lecturer (Docent 4) in the Masters’ Information Studies program in the Informatics Institute at the University of Amsterdam (2019-2023). In 2021, she was awarded Ph.D. for her thesis titled “Expressions of psychological stress on twitter: detection and characterisation”, from the University of Wolverhampton, UK.

In her research, Reshmi explores human-centred AI applications to support societally embedded workflows and challenges—particularly in journalism. Collaborating with a Dutch news media organization, she led design thinking sessions to identify practical challenges in newsroom settings. This led to several applied projects grounded in Natural Language Processing including: a graph-based Retrieval-Augmented Generation system that provides contextual background to journalists from sources like Wikipedia and news archives, experimental prompting strategies for rewriting news headlines on social media in varied linguistic styles, the development of LLM-based news reader personas to explore cultural inclusivity and evaluations of text simplification models to assess their treatment of stylistic and rhetorical devices.

Book Launch: Schibsted – The Digital Transformation of a Nordic Media Giant
2025-08-22 10:00 - 11:00 | Medielab, tower 3, 9. floor, Media City Bergen.
How do you steer one of the Nordics’ largest media companies through the digital revolution while aiming to grow stronger on the other side?
We invite you to a conversation with Ole J. Mjøs, author and Professor of Media Studies at the University of Bergen, who has closely studied Schibsted’s strategic choices, digital transformation, and international journey.
Joining the discussion are Kjersti Løken Stavrum, CEO of the Tinius Trust (Schibsted’s owner) and Chair of the Schibsted Board, and Didrik Munch, former CEO of Schibsted Norway and a key figure in building the company’s strong position. The conversation will be moderated by Sølve Rydland, Political Editor at Bergensavisen (BA).
Together, they will explore some of the big questions:

What have been Schibsted’s greatest successes—and crises?

Which turning points shaped its digital expansion?

Why was the company split?

What is at stake in the battle against global platform giants?

And what lies ahead for a company determined to become the Nordic region’s leading media destination?

This is a rare opportunity to gain firsthand insights into the past, present, and future of one of the most influential media companies of our time.
Organizers: The Centre for Investigative Journalism (SUJO), the Media Industry and Journalism Research Group (Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen), and Media Cluster.

Arendalsuka: "AI in the media: Empowering editors and safeguarding democracy"
2025-08-12 15:00 - 15:45 | Arendalsuka, Kunstig Intelligens-teltet Kirkebakken 19, Tyholmen, Arendal, Norway
MediaFutures Centre Leader Christoph Trattner, Innovation Coordinator Christopher Senf and MediaFutures Industry Partners will talk about AI in the Media: Empowering Editors and Safeguarding Democracy.
Program
Session 1: Introducing SFI MediaFutures (10 min.):
15:00—15:02:
“A Research Centre for Responsible MediaTechnology and Innovation”
Anne Nielsen (Head of Administration @ SFI MediaFutures)
15:02—15:10:
“MediaFutures in Action: Combating Visual Misinformation with C2PA”
Christoph Trattner (Director @ SFI MediaFutures)
Session 2: AI as a Tool to Empower Editors (20 min.):
15:10—15:20:
“Real Journalist, Virtual Avatar: What We Learned at TV2 from Peeking into Pandora’s Box with KI-Kjetil” (10 min.)
Lubos Steskal and Chris Ronald Hermansen (AI Team @ TV2)
15:20—15:30:
“Leveraging AI for Fac- Checking and Investigative Journalism” (10 min.)
Morten Langfeldt Dahlback (Head of Innovation @ Faktisk.no)
Session 3: AI as a Tool to Preserve Democracy (15 min.):
15:30—15:35
“Reimagining Debate with AI: Fighting Disinformation with a Political Co-Moderator” (5 min.)
Chris Senf (Innovation Coordinator @ SFI MediaFutures)
15:35—15:45:
“Truth Tech: How AI Verifies Political Claims” (10min.)
Gaute Kokkvoll (Head of Product @ Factiverse)

Pint of Science x MediaFutures
2025-06-26 19:00 - 21:00 | Staatsraaden bar, Bergen, Bradbenken 2, Bergen, 5003, Norway
Had Enough of Office Talk and Formal Seminars?
Yeah, us too.
That’s why we’re shaking things up and teaming up with Pint of Science to bring research out of the lecture halls and into your local bar! Join us for our very first Pint of Science night, right in the cosy atmosphere of Staatsraaden bar in Bergen.
Pint of Science is a global, non-profit movement where thousands of researchers in 500+ cities share their work in pubs, cafés, and public spaces. No slides packed with jargon. No academic gatekeeping. Just real science, served with a drink.
This evening’s theme: The Future of Media Technology
Expect three short and super accessible talks from our MediaFutures researchers, each just 10–15 minutes long. They’ve boiled down their work to the juicy bits so you can sip your beer and still get smarter.
The vibe? Casual, fun, and all about conversation. You’ll get to meet the scientists, ask questions, and even take part in a quick quiz to wrap up the night.
So whether you’re a media geek, techie, curious mind, or just someone looking for a different kind of night out, grab a friend or come solo and join us for a pint of science (or soda).
We can’t wait to meet you and hear what you think the future of media should look like.

Samia Touileb
Associate Professor
Talk Title: Bias in Large Language Models

Yuki Onishi
Researcher
Talk title: Can eye gaze show us what future TV production galleries looks like?

Peter Andrews
PhD Candidate
Talk Title: Enhancing Debates with a AI Powered Political Co-Pilot

AI, rights and development of Norwegian language models
2025-06-23 16:00 - 20:00 | Union Scene, Drammen
Artificial intelligence (AI) and language technology have developed rapidly in recent years. The language models used in AI services are trained on vast amounts of text, often without permission from or compensation to the rights holders.
In Norway, there is broad political agreement that we need Norwegian language models. Public and private AI services should reflect the Norwegian and Sámi languages, history, and culture, and there is a need for Norwegian alternatives to international services.
Much is at stake. AI services are already weakening the economic foundation for, among others, translators, illustrators, and those who write and publish educational materials. At the same time, the National Library has documented that language models improve when trained on protected content, such as books and newspapers.
Do Norwegian authors and publishers have a social responsibility to contribute content to Norwegian models if they are compensated?Would such agreements drain an already vulnerable cultural sector by accelerating a shift where human creativity loses ground?Perhaps this is a unique opportunity to set a precedent: that training on protected material must be paid for. New income streams for the cultural field could enable the creation and publication of new works of great value to society.
Panel discussion featuring experts in the field:

Trine Skei Grande, CEO of the Norwegian Publishers Association

Espen Ytreberg, author and professor of media studies

Lilja Øvrelid, professor and head of the Language Technology Group at the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, MediaFutures Work Package 5 member

Hege Munch Gundersen, CEO of Kopinor

The event is free and open to all. Welcome!

fAIrgov-sluttkonferanse
2025-06-12 09:00 - 12:00 | Lillesalen, Kulturhuset i Bergen Vaskerelven 8, 5014 Bergen
Artificial intelligence is often described as the electricity of our time, and its development is accelerating. But what does this mean for the public sector, and what is needed to maintain public trust?

Public Fairness Perceptions of Algorithmic Governance (fAIrgov) is a research project at NORCE that, since 2018, has been exploring Norwegian attitudes toward the use of AI in the public sector. They now invite you to their final conference: a morning of reflections, insights, and discussion, featuring contributions from both researchers and public sector representatives.
Both academic and administrative staff at the Department of Information Science and Media Studies are welcome to attend the conference!
Registration form(Limited number of seats!)
Details of the fAIrgov Final Conference:

Date: June 12
Time: 09:00–12:00
Venue: Lillesalen, Kulturhuset i Bergen, Vaskerelven 8, 5014 Bergen
Afterwards: Lunch and informal research meetups from 12:00–14:00

Preliminary Program:

09:00–09:30 – Doors open, coffee and mingling
09:30–09:45 – Opening remarks by Camilla Stoltenberg
09:45–10:05 – Case: AI in the Norwegian Tax Administration, by Nina Serdarevic
10:05–10:25 – Case: AI in NAV (Labour and Welfare Administration), by Robindra Prabhu
10:25–10:45 – Break
10:45–11:05 – Public support for AI, by Mikael Poul Johannesson, NORCE
11:05–11:50 – Panel debate: What does it take for the Norwegian public sector to be ready for the AI revolution?– with Camilla Stoltenberg, Annette Fagerhaug Stephansen, Sveinung Arnesen, Nina Serdarevic, Robindra Prabhu
11:50–12:00 – Closing remarks by Sveinung Arnesen, fAIrgov project leader
12:00–14:00 – Lunch and informal networking with researchers

The conference is free and open to everyone. It is particularly relevant for public sector employees, researchers, policymakers – and anyone curious about how AI might transform the public sector and affect us as citizens.
Follow the event Is the Norwegian Public Sector Ready for the AI Revolution? on Facebook for updates and a link to the livestream if you’d like to attend digitally.
