Moderator

Dr Gerald Volkmer (Federal Institute in Oldenburg)

PhD, JD, Deputy Director of the Federal Institute for Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe at the University of Oldenburg. Fields of research: history of international and transnational relations in Central and South-Eastern Europe, history of Romania, Hungary and the Habsburg Monarchy and legal history of Central and South-Eastern Europe. Recently published: ’Die deutschsprachigen Minderheiten in der Europäischen Union‘ [German-speaking minorities in the EU], Oxford German Studies, vol. 48, June 2019, p. 17–53; ’Die Haltung der politischen und kulturellen Eliten Rumäniens gegenüber den Mittelmächten 1914–1917‘ [The attitude of Romania’s political and cultural elites towards the Central Powers], in Gundula Gahlen, Deniza Petrova and Oliver Stein (eds.), Die unbekannte Front. Der Erste Weltkrieg in Rumänien. Frankfurt am Main-New York, Campus Verlag, 2018, p. 49–83.

Speaker

Prof. Alina Bârgăoanu (National University of Political Studies and Public Administration in Bucharest)

PhD, Romanian communication scholar with a strong interest in digital transformation, strategic communication, disinformation (including regulatory responses). She is Dean of the College of Communication and Public Relations, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest. Dr Bârgãoanu is currently a member of the Advisory Board of the European Digital Media Observatory, an affiliate member of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, Helsinki, and an honorary adviser for strategic communication to the national coordinator of the vaccination campaign in Romania. She was a visiting scholar at Minda de Gunzburg Centre for European Studies at Harvard University (October 2018–March 2019). In 2018, she served as a member of the High-Level Expert Group on Fake News and Online Disinformation at the European Commission. She has published extensively, both for the Romanian and English press, on topics related to the COVID-19 infodemic, conspiracy theories, viralization mechanisms, public trust and government communications.