Data Science and AI in excellence research centers in Chile: IMFD, CENIA and I-Health
2023-06-07 12:00 - 14:00 (Europe/Oslo)
Associate Professor, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile Denis Parra is principal researcher at the excellence research centers CENIA (National Center for Research in Artificial Intelligence in Chile), iHealth, and adjunct researcher at the IMFD (Millennium Institute for Research on Data Fundamentals). Prof. Parra research interests span Recommender Systems, Intelligent User Interfaces, Applications of Machine Learning (Healthcare, Creative AI) and Information Visualization.

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

Symposium - Towards a Fairer Future of Education: Algorithmic Inequality and Learning Analytics
2023-06-13
Where & When: Scandic Hotel Ørnen in Bergen, Wednesday June 13th.
Invitation: SLATE Research Centre and MediaFutures invite you to the symposium “Towards a Fairer Future of Education: Algorithmic Inequality and Learning Analytics”!
The emerging applications of Learning Analytics and AI in education that employ student data to improve learning and teaching is gaining worldwide attention. How can data and analytics be used to empower learners, and what is their impact on education? How can we ensure that AI and Learning Analytics are used to support learning while preserving their responsible usage? What are the challenges associated with striking this balance? What can constitute an equitable and fairer use of AI systems in education and Learning Analytics?
These are just some examples of the thought-provoking questions that we will highlight during the symposium!
The event will be held in-person at Scandic Hotel Ørnen in Bergen on Wednesday June 13th. This is a physical symposium, not a digital webinar, and lunch, coffee, tea and snacks will be served.
The symposium program will be announced as we get closer to the event itself, but the registration form is already open!
Registration deadline is June 8th.
ORGANISING COMMITTEE:

Mohammad Khalil

Mohammad Khalil is a senior researcher at the Centre for the Science of Learning & Technology (SLATE) and the project leader of European Erasmus+ project Remote Intelligent Access to Labs in Higher Education (RIALHE). Khalil has a PhD degree in Engineering Sciences with distinction from Graz University of Technology. He worked as a Postdoc at Delft University of Technology in Technology Enhanced Learning. Khalil is the PI of three Peder Sather projects in joint collaboration with University of California Berkeley on Learning Analytics and Recommendation systems in higher education. He has also been involved in several European projects: Scaling up Educational Innovation in Schools (SEIS), Open Educational Resources in Computational Biomedicine (OERCompBiomed), and European Network for Virtual lab & Interactive SImulated ONline learning 2027 (ENVISION2027).
Khalil is currently an associate editor of the International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET) and served as a guest editor at the Journal of Computing in Higher Education, Journal of Learning Analytics, and the British Journal of Educational Technology. Khalil has more than 75 publications on ICT & learning. His key research interests include Technology Enhanced Learning, AI in Education, Learning Analytics, and Privacy and Ethics.

Mehdi Elahi

Mehdi Elahi is an Associate Professor at the University of Bergen (UiB), Norway. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science in 2014 and since then published more than 90 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications. His current #citation is 2900+ and his H-index is 25. His research has been mainly focused on AI, Data Science, and Cognitive Science, with an emphasis on their potential industrial applications such as on Recommender Systems. He has also co-invented and co-owned an AI-related US-patent. Mehdi Elahi has been involved in the authorship of several EU grant proposals such as the large-scale grants, recently funded with a budget of 30 Million Euro, where he will serve as WP Leader for 8 years. Before that, he has received prestigious research credits from giant IT industries (i.e., Amazon and Google). His research findings have been published in some of the most prestigious reference literature of the field including a recently authored book. He has organized International Data Challenges together with top Companies (i.e., Spotify and XING).

Barbara Wasson

Barbara Wasson, Director of the Centre for The Science of Learning and Technology (SLATE), University of Bergen, Norway is a full Professor in the Department of Information Science & Media Studies. She was one of the founders of Kaleidoscope, a European Network of Excellence on Technology Enhanced Learning, sat on the executive committee, and was leader of its CSCL SIG with over 400 members. She is currently co-leader of the Learning Analytics Community Europe SIG (LACE). Wasson is an expert evaluator in the European Commission. Wasson is/has been a PI for numerous national and international projects including the recent Trond Mohn project ‘AI and Education: Layers of Trust’. She has over 120 publications in the field of Technology Enhanced Learning.
In addition to her work for the Council of Europe, she is a member of the Norwegian Government’s expert group on learning analytics, which is looking at the technical, pedagogical, legal and ethical aspects of the implementation of learning analytics in the Norwegian educational sector.

For more information click here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

NordMedia Conference 2023
2023-08-16 - 2023-08-18
NordMedia23 will be organized in Bergen, Norway from 16 – 18 August 2023. The theme of the conference is Technological Takeover? Social and Cultural implications – promises and pitfalls.
For more information visit: https://nordmedianetwork.org/nordmedia-conference-2023/

Kunstig intelligens – ChatGPT: Hvor står vi – hvor går vi?
2023-09-14 18:00 - 20:00 | Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, Drammensveien 78, Oslo, Norway
The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters is hosting a panel debate with MediaFutures researcher Samia Touileb as one of the participants.
The title of the panel is Artificial Intelligence – ChatGPT: Where do we stand – where are we going? and will feature introductions by Samia Touileb as well as professor of legal informatics at the University of Oslo, Tobias Mahler.
The debate will be in Norwegian.
The debate will be streamed and shared at the youtube channel of The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
Please visit the event website for more information.

BehavRec '23: Recommendations for Behavior Change
2023-09-19 09:00 - 10:30 | ACM RecSys, Singapore
Join us at the “BehavRec ’23: Recommendations for Behavior Change” workshop, a part of the 17th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys ’23) in Singapore from September 18th to 22nd, 2023.
This workshop focuses on persuasive and behavior change recommender systems, offering insights into designing recommendations that prompt positive behavior shifts. Explore a range of topics, including behavior change recommender systems in health, food, education, and more. Delve into user interfaces like visual, context-aware, and conversational interfaces. Discover innovative approaches such as controllability, transparency, and context-awareness in designing recommendations. Dive into the ethical and privacy aspects of behavior change technology and learn about theories of behavior change and persuasion. Explore evaluation methods and case studies. Submit your papers by August 3, 2023, through EasyChair. Join us to share, learn, and shape the future of behavior change technology.

NORMalize at RecSys ’23
2023-09-19 09:00 - 17:35 | Online
MediaFutures Key Researcher Alain Starke is co-organizing a workshop on normative design and evaluation of recommender systems during the 17th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems, RecSys ’23.
NORMalize sets out to provide a platform for researchers and practicioners from different domains to discuss challenges related to the normative design and evaluation of recommender systems.
In this workshop they examine the question whether news recommenders should provide sufficiently diverse recommendations. Should we strive to expose users to content that contradicts their political beliefs?
It is RecSys’ first Workshop on Normative Design and Evaluation of Recommender Systems and will take place on Tuesday September 19, 2023. Remote participation is possible.
Agenda:
The morning is an on-site, while the afternoon offers a hybrid format.
Morning session
09:00 – 09:10 Welcome & Introduction
09:10 – 10:30 Interactive workshop
10:30 – 11:15 Coffee break
11:15 – 12:35 Interactive workshop
12:35 – 14:00 Lunch break

Afternoon session
14:00 – 14:45 Keynote: Louisa Bartolo
14:50 – 15:00 Towards a Pragmatic Approach for studying Normative Recommender Systems: exploring Power Dynamics in Digital Platform Markets
15:00 – 15:10 Designing and Implementing Socially Beneficial Recommender Systems: An Interdisciplinary Approach
15:10 – 15:20 Digital Humanism and Norms in Recommender Systems 15:20 – 16:05 Coffee break
16:05 – 16:15 Improving and Evaluating the Detection of Fragmentation in News Recommendations with the Clustering of News Story Chains
16:15 – 16:25 Enabling Serendipitous News Discovery Experiences by Designing for Navigable Surprise
16:25 – 16:35 NPR: a News Portal Recommendations dataset
16:35 – 16:45 Value-Based Nudging in News Recommender Systems – Results From an Experimental User Study
16:45 – 16:55 Refining deliberative standards for online political communication: Introducing a summative approach to designing deliberative recommender systems
16:55 – 17:05 Classification of Normative Recommender Systems
17:05 – 17:35 Panel discussion & Closing

Liisa Ovaska: From permissive to resistive tactics: How audience members act, make sense and cope with audience-datafied journalism
2023-09-22 12:00 - 13:00 | MediaFutures HQ, 3rd Floor, Tower 1, Media City, Media Futures HQ, 3rd floor, Bergen, 5008
We are pleased to invite to a seminar about Liisa Ovaska’s research paper on how audience members respond to audience-datafied journalism. Preliminary findings reveal a spectrum of strategies, ranging from resistance to acceptance, in how users engage with data-driven systems while consuming news.
Liisa Ovaska is a doctoral researcher at Tampere University. In her dissertation Ovaska studies the effects of audience metrics on audience members’ relations to digital journalism.
Where and When:
At MediaFutures, 22.september at 12:00
Abstract:

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

Knowledge Café on PhD Teaching Duties
2023-09-28 14:00 - 16:00 | MediaFutures HQ, 3rd Floor, Tower 1, Media City, Media Futures HQ, 3rd floor, Bergen, 5008
As part of our Knowledge Café seminar series, MediaFutures will be organizing a seminar on teaching duties for PhD students at the Department of Information Science and Media Studies.
During the meeting you will be introduced to some of the tools available at the university, and that you might want to use during teaching. You will also get insights into what kind of teaching duties are required by the department, and what it means in terms of efforts and work hours.
Agenda
14:00 – 15:00: Marit Midtun and Kristoffer Eik, Læringslabben, will introduce Mitt UiB and other tools that can be used during teaching.
15:00 – 15:15: Break
15:15 – 15:45: Kine Lohne de Nijs and Knut Risnes, Department of Information Science and Media Studies, will give various important details about PhD’s teaching duties at the department.
15:45 – 16:00: Discussions

Irene Costera Meijer: TikTok as a case study to understand the layeredness of Media Experience:
2023-09-29 12:00 - 13:00 | MediaFutures HQ, 3rd Floor, Tower 1, Media City, Media Futures HQ, 3rd floor, Bergen, 5008
Join our next Lunch Meeting with Irene Costera Meijer, Professor of Journalism Studies and head of the Journalism Studies section at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
She is also Work Package I Advisor and Key Researcher. Her research interests focus on audience studies and in particular on the impact of digitalization on changing practices of media consumption, media experiences and news use. When doing research she often collaborates with media organisations.
Where and When?
At MediaFutures, 29.september at 12:00
Abstract:
TikTok reaches around 44% of the 18-24 age group, with 20% explicitly saying they use it for news (Newman et al., 2023). It is not surprising, then, that (news) media have migrated to TikTok to engage with younger audiences. Yet, research shows that media struggle with reaching young people, because conventional formats do not always correspond with how young people use and experience social media platforms. Nordic researchers have argued that newsrooms would benefit from a platform-specific content approach: beyond merely (re)”packaging” the news and neglecting the content, they must learn to “speak the code of TikTok” to engage young audiences with their news.
We took a different non-news centric approach by analyzing how 99 young people (16 – 24) experience TikTok and whether there might be room for news in this experience. Experience may highlight positionality, temporality, embodiment, ambivalence and interaction (Costera Meijer & Groot Kormelink, 2021; Ytre-Arne et al., 2023). This approach allowed us to get insight into the RELATIVE value of news within their TikTok-experiences.
In my presentation I will show how the dimension of temporality – the discrepancy between love = ‘concurrent enjoyment’ and hate = ‘retrospective regret’ may offer valuable insights for public service media and news media to stand out on TikTok and be meaningful to a young audience.

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

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

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

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

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

More information can be found on uib.no

Sampol Conference 2023: (Limited) Technology: Progress or Downfall of Democracy?
2023-10-18 08:30 - 15:30 | UiB Bergen, Norway
The Sampol Conference 2023 is organized by master’s degree students at the Department of Comparative Politics (UiB) every other year. Its main objective is to provide a vibrant platform for constructive dialogue and exchange of ideas on significant societal and scientific issues.
The conference has been held biennially since 1985, focusing on a wide range of topics, including the fight against terrorism, climate, and social sciences. Over time, the conference has established itself as a recognized platform for political science debate, fostering an interdisciplinary environment that brings together students, politicians, businesses, non-governmental organizations, and public administration.
This year’s Sampol Conference is set to take place on October 18th at Universitetsaulaen at UiB! During this year’s conference, we aim to explore the role of technology in society. The whole program can be found here.
The focus will be on how technology can be both the cause and the solution to many challenges affecting various aspects of society, including states, individuals, research, and businesses. Through debates, lectures, and panel discussions, we intend to shed light on a range of topics: ethics and regulation of artificial intelligence, research and user data from technology companies, the use of technology by authoritarian regimes, freedom of speech in the media, radicalization and political mobilization, as well as green sustainable development and innovation. The conference will also feature a traditional party debate on energy and renewable resources.
Big Sciene panel
MediaFutures researcher Samia Touileb will participate in the panel discussion on big data: Goldmine or Pitfall? scheduled from 11:15 to 12:00 on October 18th. This debate will raise questions about the role of independent research in modern times.
Tech giants like Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Amazon, possess vast amounts of user data, and it’s entirely up to them whether to share this data with researchers for social science purposes or not. This post sheds light on the ethical dilemmas that arise when corporations control who sees what, especially when the data they hold contains information about us, the ordinary citizens. What does the future research landscape look like? What can we learn from such data sources? Join us for a presentation from our experts, followed by an in-depth discussion on the opportunities, limitations, and ethics of “big data” in research.
Tickets for the day event can be purchased on the website of the conference. The tickets also include coffee and catering during the daytime part of the program.

Fact Checking and Fact-based journalism in the age of AI
2023-11-01 09:00 - 16:00 | Kristiania, Kirkegata 24-26, Oslo, Kirkegata 24-26, Oslo, Norway
Kristiania University College and MediaFutures partner Faktisk.no have the honour to invite to a full-day conference about the challenges and opportunities that AI presents in the field of fact-checking.
How to distinguish between genuine and AI-generated content?
The challenges arising from new AI technology in fact-checking are significant. How is this field evolving, and what methods are being employed to uncover AI-generated visual content?
The event is free of charge and is aimed at journalists and editors in Norwegian media, representatives from Norwegian political parties, intelligence services, top executives, employees of humanitarian and human rights organizations, as well as researchers.
The event will be conducted in English. Please remember to register for the event.
Deadline to register: 25.10.2023
The conference will be also available via streaming.
Program
09.00: Doors open
09.30: Welcome & introduction by Morten L. Dahlback (Faktisk.no) and Nils Arne Bakke (Kristiania University College).
10.00: Presentation by Mevan Babakar, the News and Information Credibility Lead at Google.
10.45: 15 min break
11.00: Presentation by Andrew Dudfield, interim CEO of Full Fact, the UK’s largest independent fact-checking organization.
11.45: 60 min lunch break
12.45: Amnesty International’s AI-Generated Images: A Critical Assessment by Liv Hausken, professor and the head of the research for Media Aesthetics at the University of Oslo.
13.30: 15 min break
13.45: Multimodal Generative AI and Synthetic Media: Current Threats and Responses from a Global Human Rights and Civic Journalism Perspective by Sam Gregory, Executive Director of the independent fact-checking organization WITNESS.
14.30: 15 min break
14.45: Focus on the interaction between journalism and tech development by Pål Nedregotten, Director of Technology at the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK).
15.30: Closing remarks
Small changes in the program may occur, potentially causing smaller moves of the time of the lunch break and the end.

MediaFutures Annual Meeting 2023
2023-11-16 - 2023-11-17
MediaFutures is a centre for research-based innovation with the goal to develop responsible media technology, leveraging AI technology, for the media sector.
The centre is a consortium of the most important media players in Norway. The University of Bergen is the host of the centre. User partners include NRK and TV 2, the two main TV broadcasters in Norway, Schibsted, including Bergens Tidende (BT), and Amedia, the two largest news media houses in Scandinavia/Norway, as well as the world-renowned Norwegian media tech companies Vizrt, Highsoft and the global tech and media player IBM. The centre collaborates with renowned national research institutions including the University of Oslo, the University of Stavanger and NORCE, and works together with high-profile international research institutions.
This years Media Futures Annual Meeting will be held at November 16-17 at Media City Bergen, Norway, the 2023 Annual Meeting constitutes a forum for the exchange of scientific results and industry insights within the field of responsible media technology.
This year’s focus topic are Generative AI and the EU AI Act. In particular, we are interested in tackling questions related to as to what extent Generative AI and the EU AI Act will have an impact on the future of the media.
Following last year’s success, the 2023 Annual Meeting is expected once again to attract, and bring together Norwegian and international researchers, and industry practitioners with the intent of engaging in discussions on topics related to:

AI Policy & Media Experiences
AI Policy & Recommender Technology
Generative AI & Content Production
Generative AI & Media Interaction
Generative AI & Large Language Models

Join us for inspirational keynote talks, prototype demonstrations, presentations held by our researchers, and industry partners, and poster session.
We are pleased to announce the following high-profile keynote speakers and experts in the field of AI: Ricardo Baeza-Yates and Esther Paniagua.

Registration closed.For late registrations please emailoffice@mediafutures.no

DIRECTIONS

Day 1
The venue for Day 1 is the Atlantis Auditorium at the Conference Centre at Media City Bergen.
Media City Bergen is in downtown Bergen, close to the main bus terminal.The closest public transport stop is “Nygård” where you can take the “bybanen” light rail, or buses 12 or 13.
You will find the registration desk in the Atrium once you enter Media City Bergen.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/GpZtDYshog3BhwWbA

Dinner
The Conference Dinner, for affiliates only, will be at 20:00 of Day 1, November 16th.It will be held at Kulturhuset I Bergen, Vaskerelven 8.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/XFQP4UCiYMq6aptx5

Day 2
Day 2 of the Annual Meeting, for affiliates only, will take place at Storm 2 at the Conference Centre at Scandic Ørnen.
Scandic Ørnen is located in Lars Hilles Gate 18, right next to the main bus terminal.The closest public transport stop is “Bergen Busstasjon”, the main bus terminal.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/oHBxMur84ReqdFVx7

PROGRAM

Day 1: Media City Bergen

AI Policy Workshop

09:00
Getting on the EU Policy Train.Charlotte Eide and Vivil Haraldsen

10:30
A Brief Primer on Global AI Policy.Nicholas Diakopoulos

11:00
Developing Mitigation Strategies to Counter Negative Impacts of Generative AI .Kimon Kieslich and Nicholas Diakopoulos

Opening Session

12:00
Registration

13:00
Welcome Adresse by Christoph Trattner, UiB Vice-Rector Pinar Heggernes, and, MCB CEO Helge O. Svela

Keynote Session

13:15
Keynote: Ricardo Baeza-YatesGenerative AI: The End of the Digital Truth?

14:00
Break

14:15
Keynote: Esther PaniaguaThrive or die? The future of journalism in the AI age

15:00
Break

15:15
Panel on Generative AI & AI PolicyAndreas Bengtsson, Ricardo Baeza-Yates,Esther Paniagua and Marija Slavkovik.Moderator: Nick Diakopoulos

Poster & Demo Session

16:00
Demo & Poster Exhibition

17:30
Demo & Poster Awards

20:00
Conference Dinner

Day 2 (Internal): Scandic Ørnen

Work Package Sessions

09:30
Info and announcements

09:35
WP1: Understanding Media Experiences

10:00
WP2: User Modeling, Personalisation & Engagement

10:20
WP3: Media Content Production & Analysis

10:45
Break + Group Photo

11:05
WP4: Media Content Interaction & Accessibility

11:25
WP5: Norwegian Language Technologies

12:00
Lunch

University – Industry Collaboration Session

13:00
University – Industry (UI) Collaboration Paper PresentationFlorence Jane Walker, UiB

13:20
University – Industry (UI) Collaboration Panel DiscussionFlorence Jane Walker, Enrico Motta,Irene Costera Meijer, Eivind ThrondsenModerator: Leif Ove Larsen

14:05
Break

World Café Session

14:25
Introduction to World Cafe

14:30
AI/UI/Policy World Cafe Session 1

14:50
AI/UI/Policy World Cafe Session 2

15:10
AI/UI/Policy World Cafe Session 3

15:25
Summary

16:00
End

AI POLICY WORKSHOP

From 9 to 12 on day 1 of the Annual Meeting, MediaFutures will host a AI Policy Workshop.
The workshop is divided into 3 sessions:

Getting on the EU Policy Train
9am-10:30am
Charlotte Eide and Vivil Haraldsen
Are you interested in knowing more about EU policy making and opportunities to give input?
At this workshop you will get an overview of EU decision making processes relevant for the Research & Innovation sector, see examples of how you can give your input to a specific policy area or to research and innovation priorities in EU programmes, and explore upcoming opportunities for giving policy input in your field.

A Brief Primer on Global AI Policy
10:30am-11am
Nicholas Diakopoulos
You could spend all day every day reading about new AI policy proposals. Regulatory initiatives are well underway in the EU, but things are also developing in China, the US, and via various global organizations. In this session we’ll cover some of the highlights so you have a better overview of what’s happening in the world of AI policy.

Developing Mitigation Strategies to Counter Negative Impacts of Generative AI
11am-12pm.
Kimon Kieslich and Nicholas Diakopoulos
What policies are actually going to work to reduce the negative impacts of generative AI in media and society? In this interactive session we’ll present scenarios and develop policy approaches that might actually work to reduce those impacts.

KEYNOTE SESSION

Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Director of Research, Institute for Experiential AI, Northeastern University
Ricaro Baeza-Yates is Director of Research at the Institute for Experiential AI of Northeastern University. Before, he was VP of Research at Yahoo Labs, based in Barcelona, Spain, and later in Sunnyvale, California, from 2006 to 2016. He is co-author of the best-seller Modern Information Retreival textbook published by Addison-Wesley in 1999 and 2011 (2nd ed), that won the ASIST 2012 Book of the Year award. From 2002 to 2004 he was elected to the Board of Governors of the IEEE Computer Society and between 2012 and 2016 was elected for the ACM Council. In 2009 he was named ACM Fellow and in 2011 IEEE Fellow, among other awards and distinctions. He obtained a Ph.D. in CS from the University of Waterloo, Canada, in 1989, and his areas of expertise are web search and data mining, information retrieval, bias on AI, data science and algorithms in general.
We are honored to have Ricardo Baeza-Yates as a keynote speaker at our Annual Meeting.

Ricardo Baeza-Yates

Abstract
Generative AI: The End of the Digital Truth?
The Media of the future may be completely different from today’s, consisting of a mixture of truths and falsehoods. Determining what was generated by a chatbot and what was generated by a human being will be almost impossible. In fact, it will be difficult to know what data we can even use to continue improving the technology. Over time, it may learn from itself, becoming less and less human.

Esther Paniagua, Columnist and author specializing in science, technology, and cybersecurity.
Esther Paniagua is an award-winning tech & society journalist and author. Esther is one of Spain’s Linkedin Top Voices in Technology & Innovation. She has been honored as one of the “Top 100 Women Leaders of Spain” and as one of the “100 Most Creative People in Business” by Forbes. Her outstanding contributions to science, technology, and innovation journalism have earned her numerous awards.
Her latest book, Error 404. Are you ready for a world without the internet? (Debate, 2021), has garnered critical acclaim. Originally published in Spanish, it has been translated into German (Hoffman und Campe) and into Italian (Einaudi). “Error 404” will also be available in Polish, Greek, Croatian, and Romanian soon.
Esther is highly sought after as a speaker on topics related to digital governance, tech ethics, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity. Additionally, Esther teaches AI Journalism at the Rey Juan Carlos University’s master’s degree program in Investigative Journalism, New Narratives, Data, Fact-checking, and Transparency.
We are thrilled to have Esther Paniagua as a keynote speaker at our Annual Meeting.

Esther Paniagua

Abstract
Thrive or die? The future of journalism in the AI age
Gradually and then suddenly, AI has erupted into the media landscape. As we navigate this transformative era, pressing questions arise: Can AI fulfill its promises of enhancing work efficiency, boosting audience engagement, generating substantial economic gains, and liberating journalists from repetitive tasks? Or does it pose a threat to the very fabric of journalism, within the backdrop of precariousness and content plundering?This talk aims to unravel the complex web of AI’s -and more specifically LLM’s- impact on journalism, scaling automatic content generation and the proliferation of deepfakes in an already ‘infoxicated’ ecosystem. By exploring both utopian and dystopian scenarios, we seek to 1) provide insights into the potential futures that media and journalism face and 2) provide proposals, from an ethical and responsible media perspective, to ensure that Journalism thrives (and does not die) in the AI age.

Panel on Generative AI & AI Policy

Day 1 of the Annual meeting features a panel on Generative AI & AI Policy. Participants include our two keynote speakers, Ricardo Baeza-Yates as well as Esther Paniagua. They are joined by head of Schibsted Futures Lab, Andreas Bengtsson, as well as head of the Department of Information Science and Media Studies, Marija Slavkovik. The panel is moderated by Nicholas Diakopoulos.

POSTER & DEMO SESSION

We invited students from all areas of media studies, information sciences, informatics and other related fields to submit poster and demo abstracts for our Annual Meeting on 16-17 November.
The demo and poster session will take place on-site at the Media City Bergen Atrium. The presenters of the demos and posters will be given the opportunity to pitch their posters.

Name
Poster

Anastasiia Klimashevskaia
Evaluating The Effects of Calibrated Popularity Bias Mitigation: A Field Study

Ayoub Majjodi
How the user’s food knowledge and nudges effect the user experience?

Bilal Mahmood
Editorial Component in a News Recommender System

Huiling You
JSEEGraph: Joint Structured Event Extraction as Graph Parsing

Gloria Anne Babile Kasangu
Affective News Framing

Marianne Borchevink-Brækhus
What does it mean when people spend less time on news?

Peter Andrews
AiCommentator: A Multimodal Conversational Agent for Embedded Visualization in Football Viewing

Sohail Khan
Deepfake Detection: A Comparative Analysis

John Magnus Dahl
What if all your news were from…

Erik Knudsen
Nudge me towards a filter bubble!

Samia Touileb
Measuring Normative and Descriptive Biases in Language Models Using Census Data

Daniel Rosnes
Evaluating Feature-Specific Similarity Metrics using Human Judgments for Norwegian News

Florence Walker
I Dreamt of Something Lost

Vanessa Marie Haaland
Responsible Personalization of Advertisement on News Websites

Agnar haugbjørg Haugen
Exploring Political Engagement and Communication in Twitch Chat: A User-Centric Perspective

Andreas Solberg Jensen
Podcasts and platforms

Thomas Laag
Context-awareness in media recommendations

Snorre Alvsvåg
Personalized Playlists on TV 2 Play

In additon to the posters, 11 demos will be displayed showcasing recent work. The following researchers will present demos:

Anastasiia Klimanshevskaia
Ayoub Majjodi
Bilal Mahmood
Gloria Anne Babile Kasangu
Peter Andrews
Sohail Khan
John Magnus Dahl
Erik Knudsen
Daniel Rosnes
Samia Touileb
Huiling You

WP SESSIONS

WP Session Programme (Start of Day 2):

WP1: Understanding Media Experiences

09:35
WP1 OverviewBrita Ytre-Arne, UiB

09:40
Beyond «more time is better»: Understanding experiences of quick news use practicesMarianne Borchgrevink-Brækhus, UiB

09:50
What smartphones actually mean to teenagers – insights from an ethnographic studyJohn Magnus Dahl, UiB

WP2: User Modeling, Personalisation & Engagement

10:00
Responsible Personalization and Recommendation TechnologyMehdi Elahi, UiB

10:05
When sport get personalAstrid Tessem, TV2

10:10
Forget about Erna, here comes BERTThomas Husken, BT

10:15
Calibrated Popularity Bias Mitigation: Evaluating the Effects OnlineAnastasiia Klimashevskaia, UiB

WP3: Media Content Production & Analysis

10:20
Fact-Checking Complex ClaimsVinay Setty, UiS

10:35
The Need for Multimodal Verification: A Newsroom PerspectiveMorten Langfeldt Dahlback, Faktisk.no

10:45
Break + Group Photo

WP4: Media Content Interaction & Accessibility

11:05
Multimodal Conversational Agents for Embedded Visualization in Football ViewingMorten Fjeld, UiB

11:15
Dynamic Aspect Ratio for Live News at TV2Ingar Arntzen, NORCE

WP5: Norwegian Language Technologies

11:25
WP5 OverviewLilja Øvrelid, UiO

11:30
JSEEGraph: Joint Structured Event Extraction as Graph ParsingHuilin You, UiO

11:40
The EDEN dataset, and application of JSEEGraph to NorwegianLilja Øvrelid, UiO

11:50
Summarization benchmark for NorwegianSamia Touileb, UiB

UNIVERSITY – INDUSTRY COLLABORATION SESSION

Day 2 of the Annual Meeting features a Session on University – Industry Collaboration. Participants are Florence Jane Walker, Enrico Motta, and Irene Costera Meijer, who are currently working on a paper featuring aspects of collaboration between akademia and industry. The session starts with Florence Jane Walker presenting the findings of their study. Following the presentation the paper authors, Florence, as well as the co-authors Enrico Motta and Irene Costera Meijer is joined by Schibsted Academic Liason Eivind Throndsen in a panel. The panel is moderated by Leif Ove Larsen.

WORLD CAFÉ

At the end of day 2 we will be hosting a World Café on the conference topics:

Generative AI
AI Policy
Univeristy Industry Collaboration

There will be 3 sessions where participants will be seated at one of the topics for each of the sessions.
Table hosts:
Generative AI:

Nicholas Diakopoulos
Dietmar Jannach

U-I Collaboration:

Enrico Motta
Irene Costera Meijer

AI Policy

Kimon Kieslich
Oskar Juhlin

CuttingEdge AI: What do we do with one billion for artificial intelligence?
2023-11-24 10:00 - 14:00
UiB AI, in collaboration with NORA, is excited to announce the Cutting Edge AI seminar taking place in Bergen on November 24th at the University Aula. Media Futures, a part of this collaboration, invites you to join us for an engaging discussion on the effective allocation of the government-promised AI billion. What is the actual purpose of having one billion for artificial intelligence?
The government presented an ambitious national initiative in September, focusing on research in artificial intelligence and digital security. The Prime Minister pledged a minimum investment of one billion Norwegian kroner over the next five years. Since then, there has been a heated debate among various academic communities regarding the direction of this initiative. Should the emphasis be on developing AI technology, or is it more crucial to research its applications and consequences? Is the debate merely a positioning of different academic communities seeking funding, or is there a genuine disagreement about the future of artificial intelligence research?
We hereby invite you to a debate where we delve into how we should utilize the AI billion. We are bringing together representatives from the government, administration, research communities, and business sectors to gain diverse perspectives on the path forward in Norway’s major investment in artificial intelligence.
UiB AI
Four times a year, UiB AI organizes seminars that shed light on various aspects of artificial intelligence. The seminar series serves as a meeting point for UiB employees and students interested in topics related to artificial intelligence. Participation is free, and the event is open to all interested individuals.
UiB AI is an initiative aimed at coordinating and showcasing all research, education, and innovation activities related to artificial intelligence at the University of Bergen. It facilitates collaboration and connections between faculties and external partners outside UiB.
NORA
Cutting Edge AI” is NORA’s seminar series where they explore the latest developments in artificial intelligence through hybrid seminars.
NORA, the Norwegian Artificial Intelligence Research Consortium, is a Norwegian collaboration between eight universities, three colleges, and four research institutes focused on AI, machine learning, and robotics. NORA operates a national research school, an industrial network, and provides support to startup companies. It has established itself as a national authority, consulted on matters of national importance.

PhD halfway presentation by Peter Daniel Andrews
2023-11-28 10:00 - 12:00 | Nygårdsgaten 5, Nordre Allmenning 3 at Læringsarenaen
On November 28th, MediaFutures PhD candidate Peter Daniel Andrews will hold a midway presentation on his work. Anyone can drop by to listen and ask questions.
Abstract
Young adults rank among the least engaged consumers of digital news media. Generation Z predominantly engages with news through social media platforms, significantly altering traditional news consumption patterns. While viewing video content, Generation Z often simultaneously engages with social media and online resources, redefining traditional viewing paradigms. Cross-device multitasking primarily facilitates the search for relevant information across multiple platforms, thereby enhancing media contextualization. Simultaneously, it leverages social media to transform individual experiences into collaborative endeavors. This project aims to encapsulate the cross-device experience into a single platform where young adults can interact with video content to explore information, improving their understanding and accessibility of digital news media. Integrating an interactive platform atop video content provides a more immersive and engaging experience. However, to make video interactive, it is first necessary to extract contextual information so users can easily interact with content. Recent advances in Computer Vision (CV) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have allowed for more sophisticated video content analysis. Using Object Detection and Multi-Object Tracking (MOT), contextual data is drawn from the video content and linked to relevant identities. By linking these identities to an external dataset resource, information regarding and surrounding content within the video becomes accessible for the user to assist in exploring digital news media. The user then has the freedom to explore and access information relevant to their understanding and experience. A dynamic interactive layer provides the necessary interface for users to engage directly with content extracted from the CV and AI backend. Utilizing Multimodal Conversational Agents (MCAs), users can interact seamlessly with the video content through natural language input while receiving feedback through multiple sensory modalities. The project uses quantitative and qualitative methods to assess the framework’s usability. The analysis aims to evaluate the feasibility of implementing such systems to assist young adults in comprehending news media video content. It also seeks to enhance user engagement and immersion, justifying its continued and future application. This research aims to revolutionize how young adults interact with and comprehend news media by offering an interactive layer that facilitates a deeper understanding and engagement with content topics, unlike traditional methods. By leveraging MCAs, the project enhances comprehension and introduces a fun and immersive element to digital news consumption, transforming it into an engaging and interactive experience. This approach counters the current trends of low engagement among young adults, presenting a new paradigm for how they interact with and understand news media.

Bergen-Boston Forum
2023-11-30 09:15 - 2023-12-01 17:00 | Philosophy Department of the University of Bergen, Norway
We are happy to invite to a two-day hybrid workshop about AI and the Future of Protest Politics: Politics and Emotions in the Age of Digital Transformation and Surveillance Capitalism.
Our goal is to bring together prominent scholars from different disciplines to discuss the impact of AI-based platforms, and their underlying technological and economic principles, on political discourse and protest.
The event will draw on the Boston-Bergen Forum on Digital Futures—an international research network among the ‘Culture, Society & Politics’ and the ‘Practical Philosophy’ research groups at UiB’s Philosophy Department, the Applied Ethics Center at UMass Boston, and the MIT Program Human Rights and Technology.
MediaFutures center director Christoph Tratter is co-leading the project together with Professor Franz Knappik (Bergen), Dr. Christopher Senf (Bergen) and Professor Nir Eisikovist (UMass).

WHERE: The Philosophy Department in Bergen, Sydnesplassen 12/13, seminarrommet i 1. etasje
As it is a hybrid event, you can join the event in person or via zoom.
Register here

1st Workshop Day, Thursday, November 30th

09.15 am
Welcome Note

Section I: Making AI Intelligible

09.30 am
Keynote by Herman Cappelen (Hong Kong, online):“AI and The Commodification of Meaning”

10.15 am
Q&A (Moderation, Jesse Tomalty)

11.00 am
Rosalie Waelen (Bonn):“The Struggle for Recognition and AI’s Impact on Self-development”

11.30 am
Q&A (Moderation, Chris Senf)

12.30 am
Lunch break at Café Christie

Section II: Contesting the Attention Economy

13.45 pm
Sebastian Watzl (Oslo):“What is Wrong with How Attention is Commodified?”

14.30 pm
James Williams: “tba”

15.00 pm
Q&A (Moderation, Alec Stubbs)

Section III: Algorithms of (In)justice

15.45 pm
Kjetil Rommetveit (Bergen):“(How) Can you code rights and morality into digital infrastructures and AIs?”

16.15 pm
Alec Stubbs (UMass, Boston):“Generative AI and the future of Work”

16:45 pm
Q&A (Moderation, Carlota Salvador Megias)

17.30 pm
End

2nd Workshop Day, Friday, December 1st

10.00 am
Welcome Note

Section I: Political Technologies

10.15 am
Eugenia Stamboliev (Vienna):“Protesting the Classification of Emotions (affects) and its Technological means”

10.45 am
James Hughes (UMass, Boston):“Communication Technologies: Hegemonic, Radicalizing and Democratic”

11.15 am
Q&A (Moderation, Alec Stubbs)

12.15 am
Lunch break at Café Christie

Section II: Future of Protest Movements

13:30 pm
Paul Raekstad (Amsterdam):“Domination Without Dominators: The Impersonal Causes of Oppression”

14:00 pm
Christopher Senf (Bergen):“Algorithmic Exploitation of Recognition”

14.30 pm
Q&A (Moderation, Ane Engelstad)

15.15 pm
Coffee break

Section III Activism and Philosophy in the Age of AI

15.30 pm
Maria Brincker (UMass Boston, online):“What kind of space is a ‘platform’ with its own goals?”

16.00 pm
Kade Crockford (ACLU Massachusetts & MIT Media Lab, online):“All Politics is Local: Fighting Face Surveillance from the Ground Up in Massachusetts”

16.30 pm
Q&A (Moderation, Chris Senf)

17:30 pm
End

Abstracts:
1) Herman Wright Cappelen (Hong Kong)
“AI and the Commodification of Meaning”
AI systems, owned by private corporations, will soon have the ability to control the meaning of the sentences we speak and interpret. This can be seen as a form of commodification of speech act content, a more serious form of commodification than e.g., artistic commodification. The determination of meaning by AI raises concerns about corporate control over language, reminiscent of Orwellian scenarios. Often, the goals behind these communicative exchanges will be foreign to individuals, who may not endorse or even be aware of them. The result is a form of meaning alienation.
2) Rosalie Waelen (Bonn)
“The struggle for recognition and AI’s impact on self-development”
Critical theories, with their focus on power dynamics and emancipation, offer a valuable basis for the analysis of AI’s social and political impact. Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition is one such critical theory. Honneth’s theory of recognition adds to the present AI ethics debate, because it shines light on the different ways in which AI reinforces or exacerbates struggles for recognition. Moreover, through the lens of Honneth’s theory of recognition, one learns how AI can harm people’s self-development. This presentation highlights some of those contemporary struggles for recognition and their (potential) impact on people´s self-development.
3) Sebastian Watzl (UiO Oslo)
“What is Wrong with How Attention is Commodified?”
Our attention is commodified: it is bought and sold in market transactions when individuals lend out the ability to control their attentional capacities in exchange (for example) for technological services. What is wrong with that? Attention markets, we argue, resemble labor markets. By drawing on the ethics of commodification and core features of attention, we show that attention markets, while not always morally wrong, carry special moral risks: because of how attention shapes beliefs and desires, subjective experience and action, they are prone to be disrespectful, alienating, and provide fertile grounds for domination. Our analysis calls for regulatory interventions.
4) James Williams
tba
5) Kjetil Rommetveit (UiB Bergen)
“(How) Can you code rights and morality into digital infrastructures and AIs?”
In 1980 philosopher of technology Langdon Winner famously asked ‘Do Artifacts Have Politics?’ This question was followed up by Latour’s (1994) and Verbeek’s (2008) analyses of technological mediation of morality. Whereas these questions were once provocative, in recent AI regulations they have become part of official governance mechanisms. In this talk I present some novel approaches to governance in the EU through, specifically the risk-based approach and the design-based approach. Situating these within a wider techno-regulatory imaginary, I provide examples of how these instruments play out in practice. I end on some critical questions: what kind of politics do in-built morality have? And what implications can be discerned for critical publics?
6) Alec Stubbs (UMass Boston)
“Generative AI and the Future of Work”
This talk intertwines André Gorz’s post-work philosophy with Herbert Marcuse’s critical theory to envision a democratized future in which generative AI serves the productive aims of society. The talk evaluates the pitfalls of generative AI in reshaping labor, including the likelihood of technological unemployment, downward pressure on wages, and deskilling of workers. The discussion also evaluates the potential of generative AI in reshaping labor, emphasizing the need for a demand for the reduction of the workweek in leftist politics and labor struggles. Central to the argument is Gorz’s imperative to redefine work’s role in a technologically advanced, equitable society.
7) Eugenia Stamboliev (Vienna)
“Protesting the classification of emotions (affects) and its technological means”
To critique affect technology, we need to politicize emotionality and affectivity newly. Today, we are witnessing the emergence of intrusive algorithmic technologies, such as AI, in our daily lives. These technologies, designed to measure and control lives, information, and data, are intended to nudge and influence our political moods and public sentiments as much as they are to measure expressions and emotions. In this talk, I will discuss the history of two types of “affect technologies” (AT) and offer some criticism on their goals and applications. First, ATs intended to measure and classify emotions and affection emerged from the cognitive turn in computer studies. While popular, these ATs are normatively problematic and flawed, but still influence the design and economic models underlying many recognition systems. Second, ATs expected to drive, manage, and influence political beliefs and public moods are underlining architectures that do more than manage emotions via technological means, but they are part of the devaluation of emotions through political campaigning. Protesting the shortcomings of ATs, means calling into question both the normative and political agendas underlying affect technologies, as well as offering new and positive approaches on affectivity that are beyond the scope of measurement and control, but remain politically crucial for democratic protest while avoiding commercial and technical exploitation.
8) James J. Hughes (UMass Boston & IEET)
“Communication Technologies: Hegemonic, Radicalizing and Democratic”
Books, radio and television all transformed political mobilization, by both elites and radicals. How different is the Internet, social media and algorithmically driven communication? Are we more likely to form radical sub-communities, each with its own reality (e.g. MAGA)? Can we envision democratic countervailing institutions emerging from the “commodification, outrageification, and gamification of protest” by platform companies? Will the algorithmic rules and required moderation included in the EU AI Act, DMA and DSA reduce ideological hegemony, improve collaboration and decrease toxicity in these environments?
9) Paul Raekstad (Amsterdam)
“Domination Without Dominators: The Impersonal Causes of Oppression”
Social movements of the last centuries have been naming and analyzing the complex forms of personal and impersonal domination that they fight to overcome. Yet current theories of domination have largely been unable to make sense of the latter. Theories of domination as being subject to the will, or arbitrary power, of another rule them out, while extant theories of impersonal domination are often unsystematic or narrowly focused. My paper tries to remedy this by developing a systematic theory of impersonal domination, distinguish some important types thereof, and show why it matters for universal human emancipation.
10) Christopher Senf (UiB Bergen)
“Algorithmic Exploitation of Recognition”
tba
11) Maria Brincker (UMass Boston)
“What kind of space is a ‘platform’ with its own goals?”
How are we to understand our political actions on surveillance and algorithm-driven for-profit platforms? Current social media platforms present users with possibilities of building vast networks and achieving massive, fast reach to highly dispersed groups. Hence, they present incredible opportunities for expanded agency, organizing, and information sharing. However, these platform ecosystems also present users with highly unusual affordance spaces, which might pose challenges to our agency. Proprietary algorithms, vast data harvesting and camouflaged behavior modification tools are used to drive platform company interests – often conflicting with those of users. We engage in political movements to shape the future, but how do our actions on these platforms in fact shape our future and our extra-situational spaces?
12) Kade Crockford (ACLU & MIT)
“All Politics is Local: Fighting Face Surveillance from the Ground Up in Massachusetts”
In 2019, the ACLU of Massachusetts launched a campaign to bring democratic control over government use of facial surveillance technology. Over the following two years, we passed eight bans on government use of face surveillance in cities and towns across the state, including in Massachusetts’ four largest cities: Boston, Cambridge, Springfield, and Worcester. We also passed a state law creating some regulations on police use of the technology statewide. During this talk, campaign leader Kade Crockford will discuss how the ACLU’s campaigners dreamed big, built a coalition, and fought from the ground up to defeat the narrative of technological determinism, and how you can do it, too.

What is News? Understanding news perceptions and practices among young adults
2023-12-04 13:15 - 15:00
Digital media has fundamentally changed what news is: how it is produced, distributed, practiced and understood, particularly among young audiences, across the world. The concept of news is changing, as well as the information repertoires of young adults. These processes of transformation have had fundamental consequences not only for news industries, but also for news research, and journalism studies. How can we study news if we do not know what it is?
This seminar presents “What is News?”, a research project approaching news as a concept in flux, using phenomenological theory and an open methodology aiming at understanding the experience of news, rather than news as a fixed concept. It discusses how the phenomenological approach may gain new insights into what news is, and what information means to young people today.
By presenting the work with the forthcoming book Navigating the News: Young people, Digital Culture and Everyday Life building on an extensive ethnography of news practices and perceptions among a broad range of youth in Sweden, the seminar will discuss how the digitisation of news has shaped young people’s understanding of what news is, how it is relevant, trusted and used in the temporalities and spatialities of everyday life. The presentation pays attention to the blurring boundaries between news and social media, highlighting how new media categories such as influencers, memes and hybrid information can take on the status of news for young audiences.
Speaker: Stina Bengtsson, professor, Södertörn University, Stockholm.
Stina Bengtsson is professor in Media and Communication Studies. She is currently doing research about media and everyday life, digital media morality and ethics, youth culture, taste and power. She teaches the course Media and Everyday Life at the masters programme Media, Communication and Everyday Life and are involved in courses also at the bachelor programmes second and third year.
Sign up By email to Lene Angelskår

Workshop on forthcoming AI calls from Horizon Europe and Digital Europe
2023-12-13 09:00 - 12:00 | Online
NORA and the Oslo Cancer Cluster are collaborating to host a workshop that focuses on upcoming opportunities for EU funding in Artificial Intelligence. The session will highlight presentations covering AI subjects under Cluster 4: Digital, Industry, and Space within Horizon Europe and The Digital Europe Programme. Following these presentations, there will be group discussions in breakout sessions.
The workshop will conclude with AI Sweden presenting their work and providing valuable insights into the prerequisites for achieving success with multimodal models in both Europe and the Nordic region.
This workshop offers a hybrid format, allowing participants to attend either physically or online. However, please be aware that physical attendance is restricted to 30 individuals on a first-come, first-served basis.

Call for Papers / Datatech 2024
2023-12-17 00:00 | Geneva, Switzerland
The Data Technology Seminar (DTS), formerly known as the MDN Workshop, is an annual event and the perfect opportunity to network with like-minded professionals, learn about the latest trends and techniques in data-related projects, and set up collaborations with peers in the industry.
The EBU Data Tech Seminar (DTS) stands as a unique industry event singularly focused on exploring data and AI applications within the media landscape. It serves as an essential gathering, an annual cornerstone attracting experts in data and AI technology, pivotal in crafting the future solutions for media. DTS seamlessly blends a conference agenda with in-depth explorations and valuable networking opportunities. Set to take place in Geneva from March 12 to 14 in 2024, DataTech 2024 promises an insightful experience.
THE CALL FOR PAPERS FOR DATATECH 2024 IS OPEN !
To submit your contribution proposal to the programme committee, please fill in this form. The deadline is 17 December 2023.

A Norwegian Center for AI?
2024-01-29 10:00 - 11:30 | digital
MediaFutures partner NORA is organising a digital discussion on the allocation of the AI billion.
In Norway, there is an ongoing discussion about how to best allocate the ‘AI billion.’ Some suggest that we should use various tools to support AI research, following the traditional approach of calling for proposals managed by The Research Council of Norway’s portfolio management. This method is well-established, offering flexibility, utilizing existing infrastructure, and enabling quick announcements of proposal calls.
On the other hand, others believe that we have a unique opportunity for a more concentrated and coordinated effort, bringing together different disciplines, stakeholders, and sectors through a centralized solution, which involves a distributed center approach. This could enhance coordination and create networks and meeting spaces that are challenging to establish using more conventional methods.
Since the latter solution is less common and relatively unfamiliar in Norway, we are actively seeking insights from various AI centers and networks in successful European nations to learn about their operational structures.
Program:
10:00-10:05: Klas Pettersen, CEO NORA, Welcome and short introduction
10:05-10:25: Serge Belongie, Director, Pioneer Centre for Artificial Intelligence (Denmark)
10:25-10:35: Questions to Serge Belongie
10:35-10:55: Simon Reeve, Director for Innovation, The Alan Turing Institute (UK)
10:55-11:00: Questions to Simon Reeve
11:00-11:20: Samuel Kaski, director, Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence FCAI (Finland)
11:20-11:30: Questions to Samuel Kaski/Petri Myllymaki (and others)

Call for literature reviews: Nordicom Reviews special issue
2024-02-09 00:00
Nordicom is inviting authors to submit extended abstracts for a special issue of Nordicom Review focusing on the relationship between media, communication, journalism, and democracy within the Nordic region. The call emphasizes literature reviews examining how these elements interplay and influence democratic processes. The submission deadline for abstracts is February 9, 2024. Selected authors will be invited to submit full manuscripts (6,000–8,000 words) after the abstract assessment. The special issue aims to offer a comprehensive overview of research developments relevant to contemporary democracy in the Nordic context. Submissions should explore topics related to media’s impact on voting behavior, communication practices in times of crises, journalism’s role, technological influences, and more. The goal is to consolidate knowledge, promote discussion, and contribute to evidence-based policy formation. Submitted works should be original and not under consideration by other publishers.
Important dates:

Deadline for extended abstracts: 9 February 2024
Invitation to submit full paper: 26 February 2024
Deadline for full submissions: 27 September 2024
Peer review: October 2024 and onwards
Expected publication: Early autumn 2025

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

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

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

Realizing AIs Potential at the Workplace - Can Copilot Unlock its Opportunities?
2024-02-21 08:30 - 10:00 | Terminushall, Jernbanebakken, 5015 Bergen
Bergen Chamber of Commerce and Industry is hosting a meeting on AI at work. Amongst many others, also MediaFutures Associate Professor Samia Touileb is holding a speech about Limitations and Ethical Considerations Surrounding Language Models.
Many have started to explore AI in the form of ChatGPT and similar services over the past year. We have seen countless videos depicting how fantastic it will be to have artificial intelligence on our side, and some have already begun implementing what many are eagerly awaiting: Copilot. Copilot is predicted to revolutionize the workday for many, and the Bergen Chamber of Commerce and Industry is excited to invite you to a live demonstration of this groundbreaking tool that not only promises to streamline but truly transform the way we work.
The meeting will begin with an introduction to Copilot, hold by Lars-Christian Ryland, Senior manager i KPMG and Marie Killi, Associate i KPMG. Later on Hans-Fredrik Pedersen from Microsoft Norge will demonstrate Copilot and sit in a panel discussion with Samia Touileb.
Please register here before the 20th of February to join the event.

UiB AI #9 Trustworthy AI
2024-03-08 10:00 - 12:00 | Storsalen, Nygårdsgaten 5, første etasje.
How do we work with trust in artificial intelligence? Meet our researchers and participate in the next UiB AI seminar!
Artificial intelligence today is maybe not yet human-centric, but it is definitely human collaborative. That means that people use AI to augment their abilities: the spam filter saves me time, the route finder helps me orient, the speech to text helps me caption videos, the video editor helps me change from vertical to horizontal format without losing the important objects in the video. Also, AI requires constant human support: to clean, label and overall preprocess data for learning algorithms, to identify and correct mistakes, to do the unusual non-typical tasks that an AI cannot handle. Much has been said about the trustworthiness of AI in recent years. Trust is a relational property between people that can facilitate or hinder collaboration. Trustworthiness is a value that we would AI to be aligned with.
The department of Information Science and Media Studies and the faculty of social sciences is concerned with the social and collaborative aspects and properties of AI. In this edition of the UiB AI seminar series, they showcase four research examples on how they work with trust and AI. The short presentations will be followed by a panel debate.
Program
Creating Embodied Artificial Trustworthiness
by Ragnhild Mølster (presenter) and Jens Elmelund Kjeldsen
Should we trust the world with a IP-hungry AI in it?
by Richard Misek
Trustworthy journalism through AI
by Andreas Lothe Opdahl, based on a paper
Trust but verify
by Rustam Galimullin

Panel: should we seek trustworthiness for AI or for its human collaborators?
Participants: TBD
Moderator: Marija Slavkovik

Women in AI 2024
2024-03-08 18:00 - 20:00 | Domus Bibliotheca, Karl Johans gate 47, 0162, Oslo
On the 8th of March, MediaFutures partner NORA invites to the Women in AI celebration at Domus Bibliotheca, Oslo. The event will also be streamed live.
Doors open at 17:30 – mineral water, refreshments & canapes will be served.
Register here
Together with our partners, NORA has dedicated efforts towards supporting universities, university colleges, research institutions, startups, companies and individual researchers who wish to discuss and address the diversity and gender gap in AI research, education and in industry. By focusing on the topic and by providing a platform for open discussion, NORA aims to develop and support initiatives that can increase the inclusion of a more diverse workforce in AI. Together, we can inspire a more inclusive agenda within the otherwise male-dominated field of AI and ensure equal access and equal opportunities for future generations. Our collective goal should be to bring awareness by promoting female role models, and by portraying the breadth of opportunities for AI in society at large.
On the 8th of March, we invite you to join us for an evening event where we discuss the situation of gender and diversity in AI today and measures needed in effort to tackle inequality and mitigate bias in the field of artificial intelligence.
During this Women and AI event, we will bring together representatives from industry and research to address the gender disparity in AI in Norway and the world today, and discuss initiatives to ensure inclusivity and diversity in AI for the future.
Program:

Time
Speaker

18:00-18:10
Welcome!

18:10-18:20
Speaker: Ajla Gasal,
Chief editor at the non-profit Sciencious, ambassador of the Norwegian WiSTEM chapter, TEDx speaker, author and active member of her student government.

18:20-18:40
Keynote 1:
Hilde G. Corneliussen, Research Professor and Research Leader, Vestlandsforsking

18:40-19:00
Keynote 2:
Ieva Martinkenaite, SVP, Head of Research and Innovation

19:00-19:20
Keynote 3:
Rebecca Wiborg Seyfarth, VP Engineering, Völur

19:20-20:00
Panel discussion

20:00-21:00
Networking and mingling
