30 September 2026, Prague, Czechia, Charles University, Patriotic Hall
Let us conceptualize the digital landscape ‚Digiscape‘ not as a monolithic landmass, but rather as a fragmented cartography of isolated islands and echo chambers. The architects of this terrain are algorithms that sculpt valleys of mistrust and erect mountains of bias, thereby confining individuals within personalized iterations of reality. In this fractured sphere, a ‚Synthetic Truth‘ has increasingly emerged in recent months and years. Sophisticated content and simulations generated via artificial intelligence utilities, capable of manufacturing flawless evidence to substantiate any narrative. As the boundaries between the actual and synthetic domains blur, we continuously confront novel and fundamental challenges. Consequently, this conference brings experts together to address an urgent matter: how can we rethink reality, establish verifiable evidence, and restore the fragile trust indispensable to a functioning society?
We once inhabited a shared reality. In an era in which reality is increasingly mediated by digital systems, we find ourselves navigating a complex Digiscape—a landscape shaped by data, narratives, and competing interpretations. At the same time, the rise of algorithm-driven choices and artificial intelligence introduces the notion of ‚Synthetic Truth‚: information that is generated, transformed, or amplified by machines, often blurring the boundaries between authenticity and fabrication.
When the digital landscape we navigate meets the synthetic truth we create, the very fabric of evidence and trust begins to unravel. By bringing these two concepts together, we hope to facilitate deeper reflection on how the truth is constructed, communicated, and contested today. What does it mean to trust evidence in such an environment? How can we sustain shared realities across disciplines, institutions, and societies?
Our CEDMO conference sits precisely at this volatile intersection.
We cordially invite you to Digiscape Meets Synthetic Truth: Rethinking Reality, Evidence, and Trust, the flagship CEDMO conference, where leading international experts in media, healthcare, artificial intelligence, public administration, media literacy, fact-checking, and communication—alongside scholars from across academia—will map this evolving terrain from both theoretical and practical perspectives. Together, they will interrogate what constitutes a “fact” and explore the tools and approaches needed to rebuild trust in an age of manufactured realities.
Throughout the day, we will discuss key issues shaping contemporary information environments: from health communication and the psychological dimensions of misinformation to the pressures facing media and strategic communication in politically sensitive contexts; from the transformation of fact-checking through AI and OSINT tools to the challenges of implementing digital regulation and safeguarding fundamental rights. By bridging disciplines and sectors, we aim not only to understand these dynamics but also to identify concrete pathways toward more resilient and trustworthy information systems.
The conference is designed for a diverse audience: researchers, journalists, policymakers, public officials, technology experts, healthcare professionals, media literacy experts, students, and all those engaged in the production, regulation, or critical consumption of information. It offers a space for dialogue between academia, practice, and governance, fostering collaboration across national and sectoral boundaries.
We are honoured to welcome distinguished keynote speakers and panelists from around the world, but predominantly from Central Europe. Their contributions will reflect both the breadth and the urgency of the challenges we face—and the collective effort required to address them.
Panels
The Grand Opening will set the stage for the day, as our distinguished keynote speakers introduce the key themes and open the discussion for the topics to follow.
Lenka Kabrhelová, moderator
Journalist, presenter, founder and host of the Seznam Zprávy podcasts 5:59 and MDŽ. Lenka worked as a presenter, reporter and foreign correspondent for Czech Radio in Russia (2008–2013) and the USA (2013–2017), her reporting led her to almost 20 countries. She is a founder of the award-winning Czech Radio podcast Vinohradská 12. She is the recipient of the 2020 Karel Havlíček Borovský Prize. In 2017, she received the prestigious Nieman Fellowship in journalism at Harvard University, where she focused on media polarization and Central Europe’s relations with Russia and the United States.
Václav Moravec
Václav is the main coordinator and chairs the strategic board of the CEDMO consortium. He is a researcher at the Institute of Formal and Applied Linguistics at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at Charles University and at the Department of Production at FAMU in Prague. He specializes in the transformation of audiovisual media, journalistic ethics, automated journalism and artificial intelligence journalism. He is the principal investigator of several European and Czech research grants (e.g. DIGITAL-2023-DEPLOY-04, project 101158609). He is a member of the executive committee of the prg.ai initiative for artificial intelligence.
Paula Gori
Paula is the Secretary-General and Coordinator of EDMO, based in the Florence School of Transnational Governance (STG) at the European University Institute. She originally joined the STG in 2017, and she is currently a member of the management team. Previously, she was the Coordinator of the Florence School of Regulation – Communications and Media and she collaborated with the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom, which she coordinated during the initial set-up phase back in 2012. For several years, she was the Scientific Coordinator of the Annual Conference on Postal and Delivery Economics. Her current research interests include digital policy, information integrity, AI, and climate disinformation. She recently co-edited a book by Springer on “Disinformation: a Multi-disciplinary analysis”, to which she also contributed to with a chapter on climate change disinformation.
Silvio Waisbord
Silvio is Professor at the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. He is Past President and Fellow of the International Communication Association. He is the Editor of the International Journal of Communication. He is the author and editor of twenty books, as well as articles on journalism and politics, communication studies, media policy, and communication for social change. His most recent book is Introduction to Journalism: Thinking Globally (Polity). He served as Director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University (2020-2023). Also, he is the former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Communication and the International Journal of Press/Politics. Waisbord received a Licenciatura in Sociology from the Universidad de Buenos Aires and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, San Diego.
Michal Pěchouček
Michal is the rector of the Czech Technical University in Prague for the 2026–2030 term. He is one of the leading researchers in the field of artificial intelligence. He is distinctly recognized for his contributions in the field of AI agents and multi-agent systems. He has 5,936 citations to his name. In 2001, Michal founded the Center for Artificial Intelligence at CTU, where he continues to serve as a professor. He is a general partner and head of the AI practice at Evolution Equity Partners. He served as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Gen (NASDAQ: GEN) and Avast (LSE: AVST). He has also led research and development in AI and cybersecurity at CISCO (NASDAQ: CISCO). He has co-founded several startups, including Cognitive Security (acquired by CISCO) and Blindspot.AI (acquired by the ADASTRA Group).
This panel examines how health misinformation operates at the intersection of media environments, cognitive processes, and social contexts. It brings together insights from interdisciplinary research and practical experience, including findings from the CEDMO Trends longitudinal survey, the “Doctors Speak Up” campaign, vaccination-related research, and initiatives focused on educating doctors and medical students. The discussion will also reflect on disinformation campaigns spreading misleading and harmful narratives about vulnerable groups, including the Ukrainian community in Central Europe.
The panel will then move beyond mapping the problem to focus on solutions. It will explore which communication strategies prove effective in practice when engaging both the general public and healthcare professionals. What types of messaging help build trust and strengthen mental resilience? How can medical experts communicate effectively in an environment shaped by information disorder? And how can insights from neuroscience and behavioral science contribute to more effective, empathetic, and sustainable communication?
By linking research, field experience, and communication practice, the panel aims to move from understanding vulnerabilities toward strengthening society’s capacity to respond to health misinformation.
Confirmed Speakers
Lenka Kabrhelová, moderator
Journalist, presenter, founder and host of the Seznam Zprávy podcasts 5:59 and MDŽ. Lenka worked as a presenter, reporter and foreign correspondent for Czech Radio in Russia (2008–2013) and the USA (2013–2017), her reporting led her to almost 20 countries. She is a founder of the award-winning Czech Radio podcast Vinohradská 12. She is the recipient of the 2020 Karel Havlíček Borovský Prize. In 2017, she received the prestigious Nieman Fellowship in journalism at Harvard University, where she focused on media polarization and Central Europe’s relations with Russia and the United States.
Pavol Lacko
Pavol is a journalist and critical thinking lecturer. He has been editing texts and preparing analytical background materials and outputs for the fact-checking portal Demagog.sk for seven years. Alongside this, he teaches media and digital literacy in schools, companies, and senior centres across Slovakia.
Karina Stasiuk-Krajewska
Karina is an associate professor at USWPS University in the field of social communication and media studies. The coordinator of research activities in Central European Digital Media Observatory and ADAC.io consortium. Expert of IFCN and the EDMO’s Group of Experts on Structural Indicators for the Code of Practice on Disinformation. Scientifically she deals with issues of ethics and professionalization of journalism, public relations and fact-checking, research on disinformation as well as quantitative and qualitative discourse analysis. Author of over one hundred scientific publications, Media Lan manager at SWPS University. Author and co-author of several educational programs in the field of journalism, media, and social communication at the university level.
Ludmila Hamplová
Ludmila is a public-health communication specialist and science editor focusing on risk communication, community engagement, and infodemic management. She leads science-journalism initiatives within the SCIENCE+ project at Free Press Eastern Europe and writes for Seznam Zprávy’s Zdraví+ section. Supported by the Neuron Foundation, she recently conducted research at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on institutional communication around vaccine hesitancy in the Czech Republic and Israel.
Jakub Hankovský
Jakub is the Country Manager of Ipsos in Slovakia and a member of the Board of Ipsos Central Europe. He specializes in market and public opinion research, with a strong focus on innovative methodologies, big data analytics, social media research, and the application of generative AI in social sciences. He holds a PhD in Sociology from Comenius University Bratislava and previously studied public and social policy at Charles University. Alongside his research and leadership activities, he is also engaged in academic teaching and the development of innovative approaches to online and social media data analysis.
Peter Kováč
Peter studied both medicine and law at Comenius University in Bratislava. He is a board-certified forensic physician, forensic expert and university lecturer, and works at the Institute of Forensic Medicine of the Faculty of Medicine of Comenius University and at the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology of Trnava University. He is a founding member of Lekári nahlas.
In his work, he has long operated at the intersection of medicine, law and technology, and also focuses on issues related to the reliability of medical information in practice. He is a co-author of professional standards issued by the Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic and has contributed to the preparation of legislative changes in the fields of healthcare and criminal law.
For seventeen years, he served as Chief Legal Officer at ESET, where he focused on the legal aspects of technology and the digital environment. Today, he serves as Of Counsel at the law firm Kinstellar, where he focuses on healthcare, life sciences, technology and compliance. Since 2025, he has also been a member of the Presidium of the Slovak Bar Association.
Growing pressures on media systems and public communication in politically, economically, and informationally contested environments form the core of this discussion. Insights from recent post-election developments across Central Europe are brought together. This includes shifts in Hungary following political change, the Czech parliamentary elections and their aftermath, as well as broader transformations in media markets and audience consumption patterns. Contributions from Poland and Slovakia further enrich the debate, offering a more comprehensive regional perspective.
Practical experience from public institutions also expands the conversation, including the introduction of the new Communication Manual for Public Administration and the evolving role of government strategic communication—particularly in contexts where institutional capacity is being redefined or weakened.
Alongside structural changes, attention is given to the increasing prevalence of hostility, hate speech, and attacks targeting journalists, as well as the broader erosion of trust in media. Particular focus is placed on contrasting regional trajectories: developments in Hungary pointing toward a more open media environment, contrasted with mounting pressures on media—including public service broadcasting—and the dismantling of strategic communication structures in the Czech Republic.
The discussion ultimately turns toward resilience. What institutional safeguards, communication strategies, and professional practices can help navigate polarized environments? And how can trust, credibility, and safety be reinforced in a landscape marked by political volatility and information disorder?
Confirmed Speakers
Lenka Kabrhelová, moderator
Journalist, presenter, founder and host of the Seznam Zprávy podcasts 5:59 and MDŽ. Lenka worked as a presenter, reporter and foreign correspondent for Czech Radio in Russia (2008–2013) and the USA (2013–2017), her reporting led her to almost 20 countries. She is a founder of the award-winning Czech Radio podcast Vinohradská 12. She is the recipient of the 2020 Karel Havlíček Borovský Prize. In 2017, she received the prestigious Nieman Fellowship in journalism at Harvard University, where she focused on media polarization and Central Europe’s relations with Russia and the United States.
Roman Imielski
Roman is the First Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Gazeta Wyborcza. Former managing editor, head of the foreign and political desks at Gazeta Wyborcza, and editor-in-chief of Wyborcza.pl. Author of numerous articles on Polish politics, Russia, Ukraine, the European Union, and transatlantic relations. A commentator on international and Polish affairs in electronic media. He has worked at Gazeta Wyborcza since 1995, initially in the local newsroom in Katowice, and since 2001 at the Warsaw headquarters as deputy head of the sports desk. A trained historian and a graduate of the University of Silesia, he is a co-author of the book The Kremlin’s Most Important Match about the football World Cup in Russia. He teaches journalism at SWPS University. He is a member of the international media organizations INMA and WAN-IFRA.
Katarína Klingová
Katarína is a Senior Research Fellow at the GLOBSEC Policy Institute, a think tank based in Bratislava. As member of GLOBSEC’s Democracy & Resilience Program she has been analysing disinformation and influence operations Central Europe region since 2016. She has authored or co-authored numerous analyses on the impact of information operations and social media on a democratic society, building societal resilience against hybrid threats and strategic communication. In her previous capacities, she worked for Transparency International Slovakia and the European Commission.
Márton Kárpáti
Márton is the president and founder of Van Másik Ltd. and Telex.hu in Budapest. Telex, being Hungary’s largest, community-funded news source. It grew out of the idea that readers should be able to learn about what’s going on in Hungary and the world at large from a well-rounded, interesting, entertaining, and impartial news source that is not dependent on any economic or political interests. Kárpáti has an extensive experience in hungarian media. He was political editor at TV2 and at Index.hu Zrt. and a political correspondent at MTI Zrt.
Jan Paťawa
Jan is the founder of KRIT – the Institute for Crisis Communication, an independent organisation based in Prague. For four years he led the Strategic Communication Department at the Czech Ministry of the Interior – the central body responsible for the state’s strategic and acute crisis communication – until it was dissolved in April 2026. Under his leadership the department coordinated state communication during the 2023 Charles University shooting, waves of bomb threats against schools, the 2024 floods and a nationwide power outage, and created the national „72 Hours“ preparedness handbook, distributed to 5.2 million households. He previously spent fourteen years as a creative director in the private sector. He approaches institutional communication not as PR but as a public service – and as critical infrastructure in a world of polycrises.
Filip Harzer
Filip is a foreign affairs reporter at Seznam Zprávy. He specializes in Central Europe, with a particular focus on Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, where he covers politics, elections, democracy, media and security. His reporting regularly takes him across the region, covering elections, societal change and major political developments. He has also reported from Ukraine during Russia’s full scale invasion and from the United States. He is the author of the podcast series Směr Fico, exploring contemporary Slovakia under Prime Minister Robert Fico.
Following lunch, the keynote will explore artificial intelligence as not merely a technological innovation, but as a cultural and anthropological event that reshapes how we understand knowledge, communication, trust, and human identity. It will ask what AI reveals about the human being, especially when machines can generate language, simulate dialogue, interpret information, and appear to reason without consciousness, embodiment, or responsibility. Moving beyond standard ethical questions of safety, fairness, and regulation, the talk will focus on deeper issues of meaning, interpretation, relationality, embodiment, moral agency, and trust.
Confirmed Speakers
František Štěch
František is the coordinator of the Research Group for Theology and Contemporary Culture at the Protestant Theological Faculty of Charles University. His work focuses primarily on fundamental and systematic theology, with a current emphasis on the theological interpretation of landscape, cyberspace, artificial intelligence, and digital technologies. He also teaches hermeneutics at the Ecumenical Institute of the Protestant Theological Faculty. He has authored numerous scholarly publications and occasionally works as a private consultant alongside his academic activities.
Fact-checking is being entirely reshaped by artificial intelligence, collaborative databases, and open-source intelligence (OSINT) methods, marking a shift from the verification of individual claims toward more integrated, system-level approaches.
The discussion will first address the increasingly prominent role of artificial intelligence as a tool for generating and amplifying misleading and manipulative content, including deepfakes and other forms of synthetic media. As these technologies become more accessible and scalable, they are fundamentally altering the dynamics of the information ecosystem and the nature of the verification challenge itself.
With this in mind, the panel will examine how the same technological developments can also support fact-checking. Drawing on current practice, it will explore the growing role of Europe-wide initiatives and tools, including collaborative databases such as EFCSN and Truly Media, as well as AI-assisted workflows transforming how newsrooms and researchers operate. Particular attention will be paid to how AI enhances the efficiency of fact-checkers, how training datasets for AI models are developed and curated, and what implications this has for accuracy and reliability.
The panel will also explore how OSINT methods are bringing fact-checking closer to investigative journalism, expanding both its scope and its methodological toolbox. In doing so, it will reflect on how verification processes are evolving, how journalistic practices are being redefined, and where the boundaries between research, fact-checking, and investigative reporting are increasingly blurring.
Looking ahead, the discussion will consider not only the opportunities these developments create, but also the challenges they raise for transparency, accountability, and trust in the verification ecosystem.
Confirmed Speakers
Paula Gori, Moderator
Paula is the Secretary-General and Coordinator of EDMO, based in the Florence School of Transnational Governance (STG) at the European University Institute. She originally joined the STG in 2017, and she is currently a member of the management team. Previously, she was the Coordinator of the Florence School of Regulation – Communications and Media and she collaborated with the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom, which she coordinated during the initial set-up phase back in 2012. For several years, she was the Scientific Coordinator of the Annual Conference on Postal and Delivery Economics. Her current research interests include digital policy, information integrity, AI, and climate disinformation. She recently co-edited a book by Springer on “Disinformation: a Multi-disciplinary analysis”, to which she also contributed to with a chapter on climate change disinformation.
Jakub Šimko
Jakub is a researcher in the areas of artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, human computation, crowdsourcing and human-AI symbiosis. He focuses on the research topic of data augmentation. He is a researcher at KInIT, where he also leads the Web and User Data Processing team. He co-authored more than 40 internationally recognized publications, together receiving more than 1100 citations. Currently, he is participating in 4 European research projects. In 2021, he was co-awarded the Best Paper Award at the prestigious ACM RecSys conference for KInIT’s social media auditing research.
Jan Čech
Jan holds a PhD degree in Artificial Inteligence. As a computer vision researcher, his main interests lie in face-related interpretation problems, encompassing both analysis and synthesis. His publications have amassed more than 2000 citations. Previously, he worked as a post-doctoral researcher at INRIA, France.
Danae Tsabouraki
Danae holds a Bachelor’s degree in Law and a Master’s degree in Sociology of Law from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, as well as a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the Athens University of Economics and Business. She has been practicing law since 2012, mainly in the fields of civil and corporate law (intellectual property, data protection, contracts, competition law, etc.). Danae has been working at the ATC Innovation Lab since 2018 as a Project Manager in EU R&D-funded projects, focusing on the media sector and disinformation. She is currently involved among others in the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) as an operations consultant, as well as other H2020 and Horizon Europe projects with a focus on media and disinformation.
Wiktoria Kałus
Wiktoria is a Content Coordinator and Analyst at the Demagog Association. In her daily work, Wiktoria verifies and debunks false information across a wide range of topics. She is also a mentor at the Fact-Checking Academy, where she leads workshops and training sessions on recognizing disinformation for diverse social groups. She contributes to the preparation of English-language reports that focus on disinformation and security-related issues.
Jan Fridrichovský
Jan manages fact-checking at Demagog.cz, where he oversees operations within Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking program and the fact-checking work of CEDMO. He has extensive experience in fact-checking and editorial management and leads a team of analysts and editors. His background spans market analysis and legal work, and he holds degrees in Economic Policy and International Relations as well as in Law and Legal Science.
The evolving landscape of European digital regulation spans a wide range of policy areas—such as the Digital Services Act and the AI Act. It has sparked ongoing debates on chat control, online child protection, and cybersecurity standards. This increasingly complex framework is reshaping the responsibilities of platforms, public institutions, and other actors in the digital space.
The panel will examine the persistent gaps between regulation and practice. Implementation often lags behind—both in how individual countries transpose and enforce these rules, and in how platforms respond to their obligations. Bringing together legal, technological, and societal perspectives, the discussion will explore where these gaps emerge, what drives them, and how they affect media systems, governance, and citizens’ everyday digital experiences.
The panel will also draw on insights from CEDMO Tracking conducted across nine European countries, offering a comparative perspective on how citizens perceive digital regulation and its real-world impact. By connecting regulatory frameworks with public perception, the discussion will address how trust, legitimacy, and accountability can be strengthened in an increasingly regulated yet contested digital environment.
Confirmed Speakers
Ivan R. Cuker
Ivan is a data analyst at CEDMO. He participates in the longitudinal research CEDMO Trends and international research conducted in several European countries. He has hands-on experience with both quantitative and qualitative research methods. He has been involved in several grant projects in academia and has also worked in applied research in the private sector. In addition to data processing, he also focuses on the presentation of analytical outputs. Ivan is a sociologist and social anthropologist by educational background. He is currently completing his PhD studies. In academia, his main interests are environmental education and the study of neoliberalism.
Marie Bohner
Marie is the Head of Development and Partnerships, Digital Investigation at Agence France-Presse (AFP) and works on development and policy strategies to support AFP’s global digital investigation team, which takes in more than 130 journalists and 26 languages globally. She accompanies partnerships with the Digital Investigation’s department partners – including major social media platforms, EU institutions, as well as with peer digital investigation and fact-checking organisations in Europe and globally. She is also a member of the European Fact-Checking Standards Network’s (EFCSN) Governance Body, as well as of its policy task force. Marie coordinated the award-winning CrossCheck France collaborative project, gathering more than 30 newsrooms and tech partners to tackle disinformation during the French Presidential Election in 2017. She did so on behalf of First Draft and was their Global Head of Partnerships until 2021. She’s currently based in France.
Magdalena Wilczyńska
Magdalena is Director of the Cyberspace Information Protection Division at NASK – National Research Institute, where she leads teams responsible for disinformation analysis, cybersecurity awareness, and educational activities. Her work focuses on information integrity, democracy, and human rights, with particular expertise in disinformation research and countermeasures. At the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology, she led a team analysing and systematising methods of Russian propaganda in Poland. She also managed multinational disinformation research projects conducted across 14 European countries by the TechSoup Foundation. Wilczyńska has contributed to international initiatives investigating Russian information manipulation and electoral disinformation, including projects at Debunk EU and Alliance4Europe, where she worked with the DISARM Framework methodology. She also initiated and coordinated Measure the Information, an educational programme aimed at strengthening young people’s resilience to disinformation. Previously, she served as a legal expert in the Department of Constitutional, International and European Law at the Polish Ombudsman’s Office, working on issues related to freedom of expression, assembly, the rule of law, and judicial independence. As a researcher at the Jagiellonian University, she participated in the POPREBEL project on political and social change in Central and Eastern Europe. She holds degrees in Human Rights, Law, and Journalism from Central European University and the University of Warsaw. She is a recipient of the Landecker Democracy Fellowship and is active in the Humanity in Action network.
Speakers
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*The conference is co-funded by the European Union under the call: DIGITAL-2023-DEPLOY-04, project 101158609. This website reflects the views only of the independent Consortium, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained herein.
