The 14th DW Global Media Forum took place as a hybrid event on June 14 and 15, 2021 and was brought to our audience free of charge to discuss this year’s topic: Disruption and Innovation.
Watch the conference recordings on our YouTube channel.
The 14th Global Media Forum brought together media professionals and decision-makers from politics, civil society, culture, business and science from around the world to meet, discuss and explore solutions.
Adapting to ever-changing realities has become the norm across most industries — including the media. Whether it's a global pandemic or the arrival of artificial intelligence, no one can hide from wide-ranging change. But what trends do journalists have to keep up with today? Which innovations are going to affect their work in the coming years? And what kind of disruptions will alter the way the media operate?
The challenge and potential of disruptive technology
Digitalization has caused a rapid and dynamic shift in media, society, business and politics worldwide. Radical innovations are fundamentally changing established consumer markets and user habits and are rewriting the rules of the game for entire global industries.
Streaming services, digital photography and virtual reality applications demonstrate how revolutionary ideas and smart niche solutions have already successfully replaced previously established services. At the same time, disruptive innovations offer great opportunities to invigorate dormant potentials and broaden horizons. The question is: what comes next?
Democracy hanging in the balance
Disruptive developments also take place in politics, with adversaries of democracy questioning its very foundations and subjecting pluralism to an unprecedented stress test around the globe.
What challenges do such cataclysmic changes pose to the media and politics, business and society — and what untapped potentials are there to benefit from? How can we seize the opportunities created by such crises? Is it a question of flexibility, or one of finding a balance between innovation and tradition?
Here’s some food for thought, and a taste of what was discussed at the conference:
Diving in: Technology, social media, political communication and more
The DW Global Media Forum 2021 sought ways to help us understand the challenges of disruptive innovations while discovering opportunities to influence these rapid developments, applying our individual areas of expertise and harnessing the innovative power of our own curiosity. These are some of the topics we discussed with you.
- Looking into the future – innovations and trends from AI to VR
Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality are important trends in the era of digital transformation. How can media organizations use them creatively? What do futurologists have to say about this? What new skillsets and competencies will journalists and media professionals have to acquire down the line?
- Representation matters - Diversifying the newsroom
What contributions can media professionals make to overcome division and exclusion of certain groups of people? How can diversity be implemented in media companies? And how does everyone stand to benefit from a much more inclusive work environment in media organizations?
- Mission Impossible? – political communication in the era of disruption
How do political processes change as a result of the use of digital media by political actors? Are the rules of democracy changing for the better or are they being reversed? When politicians use platforms provided by intermediaries, who really stands to profit? Do social media channels drive division and radicalization forward by focusing on their own economic incentives?
- Conspiracy theories and fake news – how media can regain trust
We are no longer simply consumers of information – using digital tools, we all now have the power each to set our own agenda and participate in public debate. Journalists have lost their role as gatekeepers – have they also lost the people’s trust?
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Highlights of the 2021 Global Media Forum
"In democratic societies where we are open to new developments, we have to keep thinking carefully about what freedom really means to us."
Angela Merkel, Federal Chancellor of Germany, opened the 2021 conference with an important message on our responsibility for and the limitations of freedom.
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Highlights of the 2021 Global Media Forum
"Independent fact-based journalism has never been as important as it is today."
Armin Laschet, Minister-President of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, held an impulse speech in person in Bonn. Michaelle Müntefering from the German Federal Foreign Office contributed a message on the second conference day, as did the chairwoman of the Green Party of Germany, Annalena Baerbock.
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Highlights of the 2021 Global Media Forum
Lizzy Scharnowkse, the 'human drum machine'
The musician's performance was part of the opening ceremony of the 2021 Global Media Forum - quite fittingly to this year's topic of "Disruption and Innovation." Throughout the program, further local artists constributed to the conference.
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Highlights of the 2021 Global Media Forum
Looking into the future - A fruitful endeavor?
A discussion on social media and journalism with Philipp Justus, Naja Nielsen, Julia Becker and Věra Jourová. Google's Vice President Central Europe, the Digital Director at BBC News, the Chairwoman of the Supervisory Board at FUNKE Media Group and the Vice President for Values and Transparency at the European Commission dove into the topic with conference host Liz Shoo.
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Highlights of the 2021 Global Media Forum
"Flood the internet with an alternative message of hope and tolerance, because that is in short supply on the internet."
Nuseir Yassin, founder of Nas Daily and Nas Academy, dove into how to give power to the people and how he enabled agency through stories one minute at a time in his one-on-one with DW's Max Hofmann. The Palestinian-Israeli Youtuber first became an online hit by creating 1,000 daily 1-minute videos on Facebook.
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Highlights of the 2021 Global Media Forum
"What we want in journalism is not optimism and not cynicism, but accuracy."
Steven Pinker, US-American cognitive scientist at Harvard University and popular writer on language, mind, and human nature, took a look into the future beyond pandemics and political upheaval and explored availability bias and the need for constructive journalism.
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Highlights of the 2021 Global Media Forum
"Information saves lives – The role of local media in fighting the infodemic"
... was the topic of one of our 14 insightful partner sessions. WDR, Goethe Institute, BDZV, Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Friedrich Naumann Foundation, sef:, DW Akademie, ENTR and DW Distribution were an integral part of the 2021 online streaming conference as hosts of the Global Media Forum partner sessions. Thank you for your contributions!
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Highlights of the 2021 Global Media Forum
"Democracy should be of the people and for the people, nothing less."
The investigative journalist Tobore Ovuorie received the DW Freedom of Speech Award 2021 for her outstanding commitment to human rights and freedom of expression in Nigeria. She is best known for her work uncovering a human trafficking ring in Nigeria in 2013, during which she was abused, raped and nearly killed.
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Highlights of the 2021 Global Media Forum
"The word 'disruption' has to be recycled. The idea of a local newspaper is disruptive. The idea to have iPhones and be on the internet is reactive."
Timothy Snyder, best-selling US-American author and Professor for History at Yale University, USA, explored what went wrong and how to fix it in disrupted democracies and the media.
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Highlights of the 2021 Global Media Forum
"It's a pity that when our demonstrations, because of violence and torture, disappeared from the streets, journalists lost a bit of interest."
Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Belarusian opposition leader and candidate in the 2020 presidential elections, talked to DW's Sertan Sanderson.
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Highlights of the 2021 Global Media Forum
Will individualization end mass communication?
Peter Limbourg, Director General at DW, Jesper Doub, Director of News Partnerships at Facebook, and Ambreen Jan, Director General at the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation explored media use in the near future with DW's Michaela Kuefner.
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Highlights of the 2021 Global Media Forum
"We live in a microwave generation. Everyone wants everything too fast, but we have to put in the work."
Mission impossible? Leymah Gbowee, peace activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate 2011 from Liberia, was on a panel with Anne Applebaum and Lutz Güllner to give us more insight into political communication in the era of disruption that we are in.
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Highlights of the 2021 Global Media Forum
"To protect freedom we also need some rules, because freedom without any rules destroys more than it makes possible"
... said Tobias Schmid (left), Chairman of the European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services (ERGA). In our panel on social media inventory and whether it connects people but divides societies, he discussed the topic with Philip N. Howard from the Oxford Internet Institute and Felipe Neto, Youtuber from Brazil
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Highlights of the 2021 Global Media Forum
Congratulations to Klipworks from Denmark and iCompass from Tunisia
Guido Baumhauer, Managing Director Distribution, Marketing and Technology at DW, presented the winners of this year's international media start-up contest. From 100 applications from around the world, following the Incubation Training Days with a selected 10 candidates, our jury choose four finalists and finally announced two winners. We thank all contestants for their inspiring ideas!
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Highlights of the 2021 Global Media Forum
"We don't need more news, we need better news, news we can trust, someone who cleans up the information."
Beyond who, what, when, where, and how: Ellen Heinrichs, Head of Trends and Knowledge at DW, Ruona Meyer, Africa Initiative Manager at the Solutions Journalism Network and Ulrik Haagerup, founder & CEO at the Constructive Institute and author of the above quotation explored constructive journalism with DW's host Javier Arguedas.
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Highlights of the 2021 Global Media Forum
It's a wrap: The first wholly digital Global Media Forum
2 days, 110 speakers, 40 sessions, talks, and workshops packed with disruption and innovation. This year, we took the conference in its full size online and provided our more than 3,400 viewers with two parallel day-long streams, networking possibilities, an international media start-up contest and the Freedom of Speech Award ceremony 2021. We look forward to continuing the conversation!
A platform to seek solutions — together
The DW Global Media Forum offers a unique interdisciplinary platform for media professionals as well as decision-makers from politics, civil society, culture, education, business and science from all over the world to get together and to learn from each other as part of an intercultural exchange.
Thank you to all our 2021 speakers for their invaluable insights and also to everyone who signed up and took part. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did! And we already look forward to getting together again at the World Conference Center in Bonn in 2022 for the next edition of the DW Global Media Forum.
Watch the conference recordings on our YouTube channel.
