In early December, the European Commission selected six new regional hubs that will become part of the European Digital Media Observatories (EDMO). Among them is the Adria Digital Media Observatory (ADMO), whose aim is the fight against disinformation in digital media in Croatia and Slovenia.

Along with the leader of the project, the Communication department of the Dubrovnik University, the partners of the project include the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, and Faculty of Political Sciences of the Zagreb University, the transparency NGO Gong, Adria News (N1 TV), Agence France Presse, Xwiki, and Ostro from Slovenia. Valued at about 1.3 million euros, the project is set to begin on January 1, 2023, and will last for 30 months.

“The goal of ADMO is to create and ensure long-term development of Croatian-Slovenian independent center for digital media monitoring, which will be made up of a multidisciplinary community of academic researchers, fact-checkers, media practitioners, journalists and civil society representatives, all of whom will be capable of revealing and analyzing disinformation campaigns and offering support in boosting a collective response to the threat of disinformation,” said the main coordinator of the project, Mato Brautovic, also the head of the Communication department of the Dubrovnik University.

“I am immensely proud that N1 has joined this cause, which is a logical step in the times we live in. It is incredibly important to have tools to detect disinformation, as well as a serious scientific basis for context analysis, in this time of chasing everyday news in the age of information chaos. N1 TV will contribute to ADMO through the production of a series on disinformation in Croatia, Slovenia, the Western Balkan region, and in Europe. It will rely on research and multidisciplinary skills coming from all 27 regional European centers which make up the European Digital Media Observatory,” said N1’s Ivana Dragicevic, who will lead the project in the name of N1.

Continued fact-checking in Slovenia and Croatia will be ensured through ADMO. Teams of communication experts, political scientists and psychologists will do a series of research on the content of disinformation, its sources, narrative sources, its acceptance and disclosure, as well as the role of international actors in the spreading of disinformation. Media literacy campaigns are also planned, and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing will work on developing an AI software for early detection of disinformation. ADMO will also serve as a reference point for monitoring the implementation of the Code of Practice on Disinformation in Croatia and Slovenia.

Strengthening the European system combating disinformation remains incredibly important, and one of the most important steps of the European Commission in tackling the issue was the formation of the European Digital Media Observatory. EDMO has been active since June 2020, and it is based in the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. At EDMO, an independent multidisciplinary community of researchers, media literacy experts and fact-checkers cooperate with numerous media organizations and online platforms in order to find ways to better understand, analyze, and solve the problem of disinformation in Europe.

With six new EDMO centers, along with eight existing ones, the network now includes all 27 EU member countries and Norway. Apart from ADMO, five new centers will begin operating next year: LAKMUSZ, which will be active in Hungary, GADMO in Austria and Germany, BROD in Bulgaria and Romania, MedDMO in Greece, Malta and Cyprus, and BECID in Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.