Media Literacy Summit

Dr. Nikos S. Panagiotou is Professor, School of Journalism and Mass Media Communication, Aristotle University. He has been a visiting Professor at APU University, a DAAD Scholar at Deutsche Welle, Chevening Scholar of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office UK, RCAP Scholar from APU University Japan, Scholar to Beijing Foreign Studies University, Scholar at Sabanci University (Turkey), and Scholar of the State of Luxembourg. He has been awarded the following scholarships: Chevening Scholar of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office UK, RCAP Scholar from APU University Japan, Scholar to Beijing Foreign Studies University, Scholar of the State of Luxembourg. He has an extensive research work which has been funded from Google (DNI Initiative fund). He is the initiator and organizer of Thessaloniki International Media Summer Academy. He serves as the President of Digital Communication Network Global, Director of the Peace Journalism Lab and oversees the International Center for the Safety of Journalists and Media Professionals.

Dr. Anida Sokol is a lead researcher and editor at Mediacentar Sarajevo. She has authored numerous studies on media and journalism in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Western Balkans, including on legislative and regulatory frameworks, media freedoms, media consumption habits, media financing and media ownership transparency. She has been working as a trainer in solutions journalism, media literacy and information verification. She is the editor of a specialized magazine on media and journalism Media.ba. She previously taught Politics and the Media and Political Communication at the International Burch University and at the SSST in Sarajevo, and has worked as a consultant for international organizations on media freedoms and freedom of expression. She has a master’s degree in English language and literature from the University of Sarajevo, Faculty of Philosophy, and a PhD in European history from Sapienza University in Rome, Department of Political Sciences.

Dr. Jacob Udo-Udo Jacob is the Panitza Memorial Endowed Executive Director of the Center for Information, Democracy, and Citizenship at the American University in Bulgaria. He previously served as the Under-Secretary-General for Research, Evaluation, and Foresight at the Organisation of Southern Cooperation (OSC). Before joining the OSC, Jacob was the Dean of Graduate School and Research at the American University of Nigeria (AUN). He was the Oversight Chair of the Atiku Institute—the development, research, and enterprise arm of the university. He previously held academic appointments at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University and the Department of International Studies at Dickinson College, US. An expert in strategic and development communications in contexts of war and peace, Jacob has provided expert consultation and policy advice to various governmental and intergovernmental organizations, including the World Bank, USAID, and the UN's Department of Peace Operations. He led an international academic team to revise the UN’s policy on public information and strategic communication in support of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) of combatants and co-drafted the revised Public Information and Strategic Communication Module of the UN’s Integrated DDR Standards (IDDRS).

Zsuzsanna Kozák is the founder-director of Visual World Foundation (VWF), a Hungary-based NGO established in Budapest in 2004. The VWF works for social justice and intersectoral cooperation through media literacy education, educational documentary film production and intercultural visual arts projects. As a media literacy education advisor at the Budapest Institute of Education, Zsuzsanna participated in the course design of the new primary and high school subject Moving Image Culture and Media Studies and its introduction into the National Core Curriculum. She designed and organised in-service teacher education courses and participated in the methodological development of the National High School Competition in Media Literacy, which she has been coordinating for more than 20 years. She is co-author of the textbook Creative Methods in Media Education and editor of a media awareness textbook series published by the National Media and Infocommunication Authority. Recently, Zsuzsanna’s interests have included the study of power relations within communities, supporting meaningful equality-based collaborations in various forms, e.g. a) documentary production with Roma youth, in collaboration with the Canadian Indigenous mobile film studio “Wapikoni”, b) cooperation skills training through film crew settings created for this purpose, c) business coaching with filmmakers, as well as studying the well-being facilitation and intimacy coordination to reduce the harm of power plays in the film industry. 

Dr. Jonila Godole is a lecturer at the Department of Journalism and Communication, University of Tirana, and the director of the Institute for Democracy, Media and Culture since 2014, whose focus, among others, is raising the awareness of the youth on the country’s communist past.  She studied among others political sciences and sociology at Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. She has completed a PhD in journalism culture in the post-communist Albania at the University of Tirana. She was one of the first journalists after 1990, especially well-known for her interviews of high level politicians and political articles. Godole is the author of the monography “Albanian Journalism in Transition” (Papirus 2014). Her research interests include comparative media systems, journalism education in transitional countries, political communication, media and memory studies etc. Godole is also a well known author and translator of German literature, and has won several prizes in Albania and abroad. 

Elira Çanga is a journalist and communication professional, media trainer and educator from Albania. She has 20 years of experience divided between active journalism, media development and communication for international organizations. During 2022-2023, she served as a media and communication adviser to the President of Albania, planning strategically media relations and appearances as well as communication approach of the institution. She holds a Masters in EU Studies and is currently earning her PhD at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, Arizona State University. Elira started her career as a journalist early on, right in 1999 when the situation in the Balkans was in turmoil and worked for Albanian national news agency, different local newspapers while establishing a TV program on regional and foreign affairs “Diplomaticus” for News 24 TV.  She specializes in radio journalism and worked as a local producer for the BBC. She dived into media development working for different international organizations as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and USAID aimed at modernizing the public service media in her country, enriching the journalism curriculum at the public school of journalism, University of Tirana and guiding the establishment of the first Albanian fact-checking service. Elira has spent the last ten years working on media development implementing projects supporting investigative reporting and fact-checking, as well as training and mentoring young journalists on media and information literacy and countering disinformation online.