Aistė Meidutė

Žurnalistė, faktų tikrintoja, Delfi „Melo detektorius“ redaktorė

Žmogus, gebantis atsirinkti informaciją ir jos šaltinius yra stipresnis, atsparesnis ir gali lengviau integruotis šiuolaikiniame informacijos amžiuje. Dėl šios priežasties projektą DIGIRES matau, kaip galimybę suteikti žinių, pasidalinti faktų tikrinimo patirtimi, įrankiais ir papasakoti, ką sugeba faktų tikrintojų bendruomenė, suvienijusi savo jėgas bendriems tikslams.

Aistė Turčinavičiūtė

VMU Junior Researcher

As a master’s student in Future Media and Journalism, I observe and deal with the phenomenon of digital disinformation on a daily basis. As a future professional journalist, I believe it is my duty to be able to counter falsehoods circulating within our communication ecosystem. To achieve such a difficult task, we need collaborative efforts from various fields of expertise, such as academia, mainstream and regional news media, and NGO’s. The project DIGIRES is a great platform for us to employ our existing knowledge and skills in order to gain a clear understanding of how disinformation spreaders operate, to design concrete methodology that helps us recognize fake news, and to teach our society to be more resilient.

Andrius Utka

Associate Professor of VMU Faculty of Humanitarian Sciences, Researcher at the VMU Institute of Digital Resources and Interdisciplinary Research

I think that people’s resilience to disinformation will be strengthened by the analysis and understanding of disinformation, as well as by the latest technologies.

Auksė Balčytienė

The Chief Investigator of the EU-funded DIGIRES project

Disinformation is not a myth, and that innovative methods and forms of action of recognizing and curbing it are particularly important.

Brigita Sabaliauskaitė

Journalist in the Kaunas region

Just a few years ago, in the context of the European Union, Lithuanian citizens were considered as quite advanced in distinguishing real news from disinformation, especially that coming from Russia. Unfortunately, due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, our society was revealed to be less resilient to lies and the ongoing information war than we had first expected. Our lack of resilience is particularly evident in how our society has been divided on the issue of vaccines, a topic that has been widely exploited by the forces hostile to our country and the EU. I very much hope that the DIGIRES initiative will help us not only to work together to find answers as to why this has happened, but also to offer sustainable solutions on how to make us more resilient to information manipulation.

Darius Amilevičius

Associate Professor of VMU Faculty of Informatics, Researcher at the Institute of Digital Resources and Interdisciplinary Research, Vytautas Magnus University

Research interests: artificial intelligence technologies, machine / in-depth training, natural language technologies. In the project, I investigate the methods and possibilities of automatic detection of disinformation using deep training technologies. Together with other project team members, we will develop a prototype for the automatic detection of disinformation texts.

Darius Remeika

VMU Junior Researcher

The fight against disinformation is like the fight for freedom, only not in physical, but in informational and cognitive environments. Just as a battle begins with intelligence, so the fight against disinformation begins with its study, and success is measured by freedom of opinion and decision-making.

Dmytro Iarovyi

VMU Junior Researcher

Disinformation is a virus of political communication – it’s easy to create, hard to disprove, and almost impossible to contain. As in instrument of conventional warfare, it weakens the the resilience of state and society to other threats. Thus understanding and studying it is very important.

Dominyka Lapelytė

VMU Junior Researcher

I‘ve been interested in disinformation and digital resilience for quite some time. Both as a student and now as a lecturer at university myself I constantly encounter these topics and changes they have caused in society. My main goal in project DIGIRES is to help the public to identify and recognize the main challenges caused by disinformation in an uncomplicated manner.

Epp Lauk

It is vital to foster civic resilience against information distortions and to develop the ability of individuals and groups to cope with situations of dysfunctional communication. Failing in this would contribute to the feeling of insecurity of people and increase their mistrust towards the news media.

Gintautas Mažeikis

Attractive visuals and “food” additives – temptative reports accustoms the user to renewed “stormy” images, to infotainment. In such circumstances, the fight against disinformation becomes particularly difficult, because it is necessary to break the habits of info-users.

Hannu Nieminen

VMU, professor at the Department of Public Communications

„We can say that the best protection against disinformation is democracy. The question is, how to make people equaly informed and competent in exercising their civic rights.“

Ieva Ivanauskaitė

Project Coordinator, Mainstream media representative

A person who communicates publicly has both rights and responsibilities, and (free) freedom is not absolute: it should end where another person’s freedom begins. My goal is to change society in the long run and make information not a dangerous weapon but a link.

Ignas Kalpokas

No one is completely immune against disinformation; but cultivating resilience to it, like immunity, must be strengthened in order to protect ourselves and others.

Jūratė Ružaitė

Professor of English linguistics at the Department of Foreign Language, Literary and Translation Studies at Vytautas Magnus University; Researcher at the Centre of Intercultural Communication and Multilingualism at VMU

Our strategy of dealing with disinformation should be based on three steps: raising awareness about disinformation; identifying and analysing it; and finally, responding to it and counteracting it. Research can make important contributions at all the three levels.

Kristina Berksun

For centuries, we ask ourselves the question “what is truth?” and we hear the answer – “there is no single truth.” But just as the earth is round and not flat, so fact is different from opinion and vice versa.

Kristina Juraitė

Professor of Public Communication at Vytautas Magnus University; Co-founder of the UNESCO Chair on Media and Information Literacy for Inclusive Knowledge Societies at VMU.

Responsible and civic engagement in public sphere is more important than ever today. Each of us should contribute to the dissemination of quality information, stop the flow of fake news, pay more attention to the analysis of information and its critical assessment.

Neringa Jurčiukonytė

MIL methodology development & society resilience ecosystem shaper

I keep the issues of human rights, investigative journalism & media literacy on my radar. You will always find me where innovation meets media and education. I use a unique background in journalism & sociology to create, apply and maintain the suggestive education methods, empower society & sparkle systematic and lasting social change. I’m Media4Change.co director and have extensive experience in the field of NGO work, effective campaigning, and nonformal education. I’m also a founder of the National Institute for Social Integration (zmogui.lt).

Patricija Naujanytė

VMU Junior Researcher, VMU communication and information PhD student

My research interests are related to the digital media era and how the concept of media literacy and disinformation, also mediatization and democratic participation are relevant and important in the debate on changes in the digital media environment. The project DIGIRES is a wonderful opportunity to build society resilience to disinformation and improve media literacy skills.

Ramunė Ramanauskienė

Regional Representative

I see great significance in the DIGIRES project: being able to distinguish the truth in the context of today’s state life is very important.

Rimgailė Kasparaitė

VMU Junior Researcher

The DIGIRES project is a major step forward in improving digital resilience and skills, independent fact-checking, and enhancing technological tools for collecting and analyzing data on disinformation.

A society that is resistant to disinformation can build more successful political, economic and social relations.

Violeta Karaliūnaitė

Žurnalistė, laikraščio „Tauragės kurjeris“ redaktorė

Dezinformacijos keliamos grėsmės šiandien ypač aktualios visame pasaulyje. Kaip jas atpažinti reikia mokytis nuolat ir iš naujo. Išmokus reikia nepamiršti – turint teisę turėti ir pareigą.