At the end of February, Oscar Westlund, professor at Oslo Metropolitan University, and editor-in-chief of the Digital Journalism Journal, paid a visit to our Lab for a brief showcase of our current projects, as well as a panel discussion held at SPUI25 with our director Natali Helberger and moderated by lab member Theresa Josephine Seipp.
In the afternoon, we moved to SPUI25, for the panel discussion titled Academic Freedom Under Attack.
The starting point was a paper on defending academic freedom written by Oscar Westlund along with fellow members of the editorial board of Digital Journalism (including Natali Helberger), which had to pass through several hoops of legal review before publishing due to the possible political sensitivity of its contents. Additionally, a signatory of over 280 researchers banding together to stand up for the defense of academic freedom was also published in the latest issue of Digital Journalism, showing that the research community recognizes the importance of speaking out, but some still do not feel free to show their position without the cover of anonymity — if it included those wanting to sign while remaining unnamed, the list would have been much longer.
The presentation highlighted the specific consequences of political pressure on independent research: research agendas and funding are influenced, and research becomes censored/self-censored. A situation that Dr. Westlund has also encountered in his position as editor-in-chief of a major journal is researchers having to come to the decision to retract their manuscripts, in fear of the consequences they may face if they publish certain research. The option of remaining anonymous was further debated, but its drawbacks remain apparent: credit cannot be properly given where it is due, and it hurts the credibility of the journal too.
Questions from the audience (and responses from the panelists) revolved around:
- Media and research literacy initiatives in education as a way to strengthen understanding of the democratic importance of these institutions;
- Examples of more subtle or invisible attacks on research: government agendas favoring specific (economically profitable) subjects for research funding, death threats sent in private;
- How to safeguard your own research work as a younger scholar: share what is burdening you with the surrounding academic community, speak out about threats, do not bear hardships alone;
- How to show resistance in non-democratic contexts where protesting may be prohibited: if in a non-English speaking country, publicizing issues externally, in English, may improve visibility. Finding alternative infrastructures that are not under the reach of political power (i.e. decentralized social media) could also be an option.
Academic freedom is first and foremost concerned with researchers’ freedom from political interference, and freedom to work independently and choose their own research agendas. This is an issue to which more attention needs to be paid, both by researchers who need to protect themselves, and by those holding the power to minimize some of the current threats.
The full recording of the panel discussion is available below:
SPUI25: Academic Freedom Under Attack
