Bled Strategic Forum 2016

Speakers:

• Ambassador Dr Patricia Flor, Head of the Directorate-General for International Order, the United Nations and Arms Control at the German Federal Foreign Office, Germany
• Mr Emre Kizilkaya, Journalist and Digital News Coordinator of Hürriyet, Turkey
• Senator Terry Mercer, Senator, Senate of Canada
• Prof Marko Milosavljevic, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
• Dr Klaus Unterberger, Head of Public Value at ORF, Austria
• Mr Aidan White, Director of the Ethical Journalism Network, United Kingdom

Moderated by: Mr Mitja Meršol, Journalist at the International Media Center, Slovenia

The relationship between terrorism and the media has long been clear. However, due to advancements in communication and information technologies, this relationship has grown strong and widely influential. Mutual interaction, dependency and inseparability have characterised their coexistence. By providing extensive media attention on TV stations, newspapers, radio and the internet, the terrorists take use of the media coverage to spread their message, create fear and recruit followers. Without the media, only a small number of people would know that an attack has taken place, while terrorists would not have been able to use such coverage for promoting their own agendas. How can we rethink the sensationalist coverage of terrorism and stop providing terrorists a free media platform? To what degree can the media itself be held responsible for providing terrorism with the “oxygen of publicity”? Is it possible for the media to objectively report about terrorists without promoting their actions and instigating fear?