Last week, the Co-Founders of the Oxford Computational Political Science Group (OCPSG), Ho Ting (Bosco) Hung and Nachiket Midha, were invited to speak at Europe House to the European Parliament’s Special Committee on the European Democracy Shield Mission to the United Kingdom about the threats of disinformation and the importance of engaging young people to enhance collective resilience against information manipulation effectively. Bosco is currently an MPhil candidate in International Relations at St Anne’s.
OCPSG, together with Will Kingston-Cox from Europinion and the Oxford School of Global & Area Studies, reiterates the importance of critical thinking and youth engagement in defending the future of democracy. Young people are not just passive recipients of information. They are a key component and stakeholders of the information ecosystem. Rather than teaching young people what to believe, it is far more important and appropriate to teach them how to choose what to believe. Cultivating a sense of responsibility, awareness of information manipulation, and knowledge of potential elements of manipulated information are crucial to shaping digital literacy and enhancing democratic resilience against disinformation.
OCPSG and Europinion are excited to move forward with the next phase of our policy intervention project on combating disinformation, following a previous presentation at the European Parliament’s Committee on Culture and Education (CULT) Committee and the meeting yesterday. Further details and opportunities to get involved will be announced this summer. The presented report reviewed by OCPSG can be found at: https://lnkd.in/eqvSQved
The Oxford Computational Political Science Group (OCPSG) is a non-partisan research initiative based at the University of Oxford and supported by the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford. It is dedicated to advancing the study and application of computational methods in political science. By offering a collaborative environment that blends political science with computational techniques, OCPSG empowers students and researchers to explore innovative solutions to complex political questions.
Europinion is an independent social enterprise and media platform committed to strengthening media literacy, journalistic pluralism, and democratic engagement across Europe and beyond. At its core, Europinion promotes critical engagement with information to equip the next generation with the tools to protect democratic discourse from within.