New media, new content, next challenges
Kicking off this event was the observation that at the end of 2016, “post-truth” – as conveyed by so-called fake news – was declared word of the year by the Oxford Dictionary. This was held up as an example of the challenges posed both by the rapid evolution of technological and business paradigms, that are shifting the focus of communications, and by the speed of access to digital platforms, where members of the public have become both readers and authors. Users also have the ability to determine how successfully a piece of news is spread, by sharing it en masse or to a narrow audience.