Discussing the 'New Challenge of Media Verification' in Guatemala

Dr. Lyndon Nixon, Assistant Professor at the Department of New Media Technology, was recently invited to give a talk at the Centro Universitario de Occidente of the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala in in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. The University, the largest and oldest in Guatemala, was established in 1676 and is the fourth oldest university in the Americas.

Dr. Nixon, whose research domain lies in semantic technology and multimedia with a focus on automated media interlinking and the creation of interactive media experiences, spoke at the conference on ‘The New Challenge of Media Verification’’.

Referring to the recently started EU funded project InVID - In Video Veritas, Dr. Nixon shared the challenges that journalists face today in using videos from social media. Often journalists cannot be physically present where the news occurs but relying on video uploaded to social networks that claim to show the news events leaves journalists open to the possibility that videos have been falsified or manipulated. Already cases have occurred where professional press agencies have mistakenly used fake videos in their news reporting.

Explaining what tools journalists can use today to validate the authenticity of videos, Dr. Nixon also highlighted how the latest research coming out of a consortium of EU organizations - including MODUL University - will be integrated in the InVID project to provide journalists and newsrooms an automated solution to video verification.

As the first international guest in the newly launched Bachelor course in "Systems Engineering", Dr. Nixon was warmly welcomed by the University director and the head of the new faculty, and his talk was well attended by the freshly enrolled first year students.