Seminar - Disinformation in the Contemporary Landscape - Oct. 10, 2024

Disinformation in the Contemporary Landscape - Seminar

October 10, 2024, 15-18

At the University of Trieste - Department of Humanities - 

Androna Campo Marzio 10, Sala Atti.  

Collaboration with:

• Università degli Studi di Trieste - Dipartimento degli Studi Umanistici
• United States Mission to Italy
• American Corner Trieste / Associazione Italo Americana FVG 

In English - Free and Open to the Public

Perspectives on the pervasive influence of disinformation in today’s media landscape, and the intersection of language, politics, and media.

Speakers:

Rachel Cooke -US Embassy to Italy Minister Counselor for Public Diplomacy

Piergiorgio Trevisan - University of Trieste

Massimiliano Demata - University of Turin

Nicoletta Vasta - University of Udine

BIOS of Speakers:

Piergiorgio Trevisan
Università degli Studi di Trieste - Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici - English language and Translation.
Associate Professor of English Language and Linguistics. His research interests include stylistics, critical discourse analysis, systemic functional linguistics for experimental stimulus design in neurolinguistics.

Rachel Cooke  US Embassy to Italy - Minister Counselor for Public Affairs

Rachel has focused for 30 years on building U.S. relationships in Asia and the Pacific. Her leadership roles in the region have included U.S. Consul General in Perth, Australia, a year as Acting DCM for our 7 th largest global mission, the U.S. Embassy to Indonesia, and six months as CdA, a.i. for the U.S. Mission to ASEAN. 

She spent two years in Afghanistan developing educational opportunities and engaging with the media, and another two years leading joint civilian-military training.  Rachel served twice in Washington, DC, focusing on Afghanistan and on Southeast Asia. Earlier in her career she served in Malaysia, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, where she was Acting Public Affairs Officer during both the 2005 and 2010 revolutions.  

Prior to joining the Foreign Service Rachel worked for the EPA and for NASA, and was a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand teaching fish farming.  She has learned Thai, Russian, Persian, Indonesian, and Italian.

In the summer of 2024 she became the Minister Counselor for Public Diplomacy at the US Embassy to Italy in Rome..

Massimiliano Demata (DPhil Oxford) is Associate Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Turin.
He has published books, journal articles and book chapters on political and media discourse, the language of borders and the nation, populism, conspiracy theories and computer-mediated communication. His latest monograph are Discourses of Borders and the Nation in the USA (Routledge 2022) and, with other authors, Voices of Supporters. Populist parties, social media and the 2019 European elections (John Benjamins 2023). He has co-edited the volume Conspiracy Theory Discourses (John Benjamins 2022), has edited or co-edited four special issues of major journals, and is the editor of the Journal of Language and Discrimination. He has been visiting professor and has lectured in Austria, France, Germany, Israel, Luxembourg, the UK and a Fulbright Scholar in the USA.

Nicoletta Vasta - Università degli Studi di Udine - Nicoletta Vasta is Full Professor of English Language
Her research interests lie in domain-specific discourse analysis, multimodality and digital media in educational contexts, which she investigates from a systemic-functional and critical linguistics perspective. Formerly Vice-President of AIA (Associazione Italiana di Anglistica), she co-edited a special issue of its journal "Textus" on "Identity Construction and Positioning in Discourse and Society" (with C.R. Caldas-Coulthard, 2009). Her latest volume is "Multiliteracy Advances and Multimodal Challenges in ELT Environments" (with A. Baldry, 2020). She is currently completing a monograph on podcasting as a hybrid genre and its ideological and educational impact on revisiting the past.