The Minister of Science of the State of Baden-Württemberg, Petra Olschowski, visited the House of Participation (HoP) at the FZI Research Center for Information Technology in Karlsruhe on September 3, 2024. It was a great opportunity for us to present our current research results and ongoing projects on polarization and disinformation. Among them was of course also SOSEC.
With the research focus on Digital Democracy and Participation, the FZI underlines the importance of research into the opportunities, challenges and design of digital participation formats as well as researching and combating disinformation and social polarization. The research focus includes the House of Participation initiative: a competence center on the topics of digital citizen participation, disinformation and digital democracies at the FZI.
Science Minister Petra Olschowski was impressed by the diversity of the various research projects: “It is immensely important, both politically and socially, that we better understand the mechanisms of polarization and disinformation. To do this, we need rigorous scientific approaches such as those developed and researched at the FZI. The scientists here are making an important contribution to counteracting attacks on our liberal democracy and the partial weakening of its institutions in a targeted manner.”
The Minster visits the FZI.
The Minister dives into the immersive participation project Virtus.
In conversation with Prof. Dr. Christof Weinhardt, Petra Olschowski discusses phenomena such as polarization and fake news in digital democracies.