From Monday, March 18, to Wednesday, March 20, the Strauss Center joined the SlavX Podcast in hosting the 2024 #Connexions Conference: Extreme in the Mainstream: Information Disorder, (Dis)engagement, & Digital (R)evolution. #Connexions aims to drive multisector, interdisciplinary, and international partnerships that encourage creative and diverse solutions for the information space. In an era defined by rapid information evolution, their mission is to educate leaders and foster a dynamic community that explores critical issues, innovates unique solutions, and challenges current narratives shaping a hyper-connected world.

The annual #Connections conference targets thought leaders, practitioners, and critical thinkers who are at the frontlines of information warfare in the broadest sense of the term, be it in education, media, government, healthcare, or business. In the 2023 conference, they brought together academics, policymakers, and practitioners from around the globe to begin to unpack how media both impedes and enables the conduct of diplomacy and the communication of foreign policy to national and international audiences.

For 2024, with wars and elections submerging international society deeper into chaos, #Connexions focused on effective practices for countering disinformation, polarization, and extremism online.

Strauss Participants

Several among the Strauss Center community, including Director Adam Klein, moderated or presented at the conference.

• From Reactive to Proactive: The United States & Information Warfare
  March 18, 10:45 am – 12:00 pm
  • Moderator: Kevin Lentz, Strauss Center Brumley and Cyber Fellow
• Lunch Hour + Mikhail Zygar book talk and book signing with authors
  March 18, 1:30 – 2:30 pm
  • Author: Jeremi Suri, Strauss Center Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs
• Law & Disorder: Cyber Policy, Surveillance, and Emerging Technologies
  March 19, 9:00 – 10:30 am
  • Moderator: Adam Klein, Director of the Strauss Center
  • Panelist: Robert Chesney, Dean of the UT School of Law and Strauss Center Cyber Program Lead
  • Panelist: Francesca Lockhart, Director of the Strauss Center’s Applied Cybersecurity Community Clinic
• Extreme in the Mainstream: Information Disorder, (Dis)engagement, and Digital (R)evolution
  March 20, 12:15 – 1:30 pm
  • Panelist: Jeremi Suri, Strauss Center Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs

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