Webinar: Stay Sharp During Elections – How Cognitive Biases and Media Influence Our Decisions

Year of production: 2024

Discover how cognitive biases and media might influence our reasoning and decision-making during political campaigns. In this webinar organised by SALTO Participation & Information, we explore the vulnerabilities that lie in each and every one of us – our flawed perceptions of the world. Cognitive biases are used against us in information manipulation activities, such as propaganda and strategic disinformation. We can build our informational resilience by being aware of these vulnerabilities and training ourselves to double-check our “gut feelings” and initial reactions to information we encounter. Our guest speaker Maria Murumaa-Mengel will discuss 15 propaganda techniques and the cognitive biases upon which they are built. The webinar was originally organised and aired on May 23rd 2024 as part of the ALL Digital Weeks campaign.

Autor

Participation Pool | Resources on Youth Participation & Media Literacy
SALTO Participation & Information

SALTO Participation and Information Resource Centre (SALTO PI) develops strategic and innovative action to encourage participation in democratic life.

Picture of Maria Murumaa-Mengel
Maria Murumaa-Mengel, PhD

Maria Murumaa-Mengel (PhD in Media and Communication) is currently working as an Associate Professor of Media Studies at the Institute of Social Studies, University of Tartu, and as a member of the Baltic Engagement Centre for Combating Information Disorders. She is involved in research primarily focusing on young people’s use (and non-use, ‘going off the grid’) of social media, different literacies (e.g. digital, MIL, social media, porn), and various online risks (e.g. gendered online hate, online shaming, online child sexual abuse and grooming). Maria Murumaa-Mengel’s main strengths lie in teaching and supervising – she is the recipient of the 2020 Estonian National Award for the Teacher of the Year and has supervised several award-winning theses. In regard to digital media literacies, she is a firm believer in the ‘know thyself’ ground rule – it all starts with knowing how we as people process information in the increasingly mediatised and datafied world.