Die Junge Akademie kindly invites you to attend a panel discussion on "Publics under Threat" on 23 June 2023 in Berlin, 7 – 8:30 pm followed by a reception. The event will take place at the Festsaal of the Humboldt Graduate School, Luisenstraße 56, 10117 Berlin.

Despite the expansion of new communication technologies, we have entered a dark age of public debates: AI-generated fake news, filter bubbles, and controlled information endanger democracies and shore up authoritarian governments. Consequently, the ideal of a public sphere where calm, rational arguments are exchanged is more remote than ever. Accessibility and inclusion are still largely out of reach. Instead, we witness increasing fragmentation and polarization. This has so far, however, been mostly explored in isolated national contexts, and not as a truly global phenomenon. On this evening in Berlin, we will transcend boundaries and borders to take a closer look at the Arab Middle East, Iran, and South Asia. Who is and can be part of publics in these regions? Who gets to participate? And which voices are excluded?

Our guests Amro Ali (Sociologist, Casablanca), Shenila Khoja-Moolji (Critical Muslim and Gender Studies, Washington, DC) and Ghazal Abdollahi (Artist and Activist, Berlin) will debate the challenges and threats to publics at our current moment, focusing on public protests and questions of gender. The discussion is hosted by Valeska Huber (Global History, Vienna) and Simon Wolfgang Fuchs (Islamic Studies, Freiburg).

The event builds on the research results of the Emmy Noether group "Reaching the People: Communication and Global Orders in the Twentieth Century" (FU Berlin, 2017–2022) and relates these results to current topics and conflicts.

In order to attend the event, a registration is required

Please feel free to forward this invitation to interested persons.