Exploring Disinformation Through Vulnerabilities: Credibility, Accountability and Inequalities
EDMO BELUX 2.0 Workshop
April 14, 2026
RTL Lëtzebuerg
What blind spots do we risk overlooking when thinking about disinformation? This workshop explores disinformation through different angles of vulnerability, each highlighting distinct challenges for understanding and addressing it. It focuses on how vulnerabilities take shape across narrative formats that structure credibility, legal and institutional frameworks that organise accountability, and social inequalities that affect exposure and protection. Drawing on insights developed within EDMO BELUX, including reflections on narrative formats through the case of documentary practices, analyses of legal breaches and regulatory responses, and work on the relationship between disinformation and inequalities, the workshop invites participants to reflect on how such vulnerabilities can be better taken into consideration when thinking about approaches to mitigating disinformation.
This workshop welcomes educators, policy makers, media professionals, disinformation analysts and researchers, and other stakeholders involved in the mitigation of disinformation, especially in Luxembourg and Belgium.
This workshop is an initiative of EDMO BELUX 2.0, a multidisciplinary hub that brings together academics, fact-checkers, disinformation analysts, and media literacy organizations to monitor, analyse and contribute to the mitigation of disinformation in Belgium and Luxembourg (https://belux.edmo.eu). EDMO BELUX 2.0 is one of the 15 national or regional hubs coordinated by https://EDMO.eu , the European Digital Media Observatory (https://edmo.eu). EDMO BELUX 2.0 is co-funded by the European Union under Grant Agreement No. 101158785.
Provisional programme
09:00 – 09:25 | Coffee and welcome
09:25 – 09:30 | Welcoming speech
By Luc Marteling (RTL Luxembourg)
09:30 – 10:10 | Session 1: When Formats and Genre Come with Promises: The Case of Documentary Practices
This session explores how certain forms of content carry implicit promises and expectations about credibility and how they should be understood. Using documentary practices as a case study, it reflects on genres and formats’ role when thinking about disinformation.
09:30 – 9:55 | Case study of documentary
By Valentine François (Média Animation and EDMO BELUX)
Description
9:55 – 10:10 | Open debate: How do formats and conventions shaping expectations of credibility play out in disinformation mitigation practices?
Moderation by Sabri Derinöz (UCLouvain Saint-Louis Bruxelles and EDMO BELUX)
10:10 – 10:45 | Session 2: Disinformation Policy Breaches and Remedies
This session focuses on concrete cases of policy and legal breaches related to disinformation and on how such breaches can be addressed.
10:10 – 10:30 | Two Case studies of Legal Breaches
By Inès Gentil (EU DisinfoLab and EDMO BELUX)
This presentation examines two concrete case studies illustrating policy and legal breaches linked to disinformation: (1) TikTok and the Romanian elections, and (2) the Southport riots and the spread of disinformation across platforms. Drawing on research conducted within EDMO BELUX, it explores how these incidents intersect with EU and national legal frameworks, assesses platform responses and accountability, and discusses potential regulatory and enforcement remedies to address such breaches.
10:30 – 10:45 | Audience Q&A
Moderation by Sabri Derinöz (UCLouvain Saint-Louis Bruxelles and EDMO BELUX)
10:45 – 11:00 | Coffee break
11:00 – 12:00 | Session 3: Untangling the knots between disinformation and inequalities
This session explores how disinformation intersects with social inequalities, drawing on the presentation of a special issue coordinated by EDMO BELUX and published in the academic journal Recherches en communication.
11:00 – 11:30 | Disinformation and Inequalities: Key Issues at Stake
Hosted by Geoffroy Patriarche (UCLouvain Saint-Louis Bruxelles & EDMO BELUX), Trisha Meyer (Vrije Universiteit Brussel & EDMO BELUX) and Victor Wiard (UCLouvain Saint-Louis Bruxelles & EDMO BELUX)
Presentation of the special issue and its core contributions to understanding how inequalities and disinformation intersect with each other.
Focus on two contributions from the special issue:
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Alexandra Colombier (Université Le Havre Normandie): ‘Rules Were Followed, Allegations Are False’: The Spiral of Informational Opacity in Thailand’s Deportation of Uyghurs*
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Chris Hesselbein (Politecnico di Milano): Separating the wheat from the chaff: Disentangling critiques of inequality and conspiratorial beliefs*
11:30 – 12:00 | Audience Q&A
Moderation by Sabri Derinöz (UCLouvain Saint-Louis Bruxelles and EDMO BELUX)
12:00 – 12:10 | Closing speech
*Abstract: In February 2025, Thailand covertly deported forty Uyghur detainees to China amid contradictory official statements, delayed disclosures, and staged displays of transparency. This article examines how this case produced not only disinformation, but a structural condition in which verification itself became impossible. It introduces the concept of a spiral of informational opacity to capture how competing narratives, selective visibility, and asymmetrical power relations erode the conditions of knowledge in multi-actor information environments. Drawing on critical discourse analysis of official statements, media coverage, NGO reports, and visual materials, the article identifies three mechanisms—cumulative sedimentation, mutual delegitimization, and structural instrumentalization. It contributes to disinformation studies by shifting attention from false content to conditions of verifiability, and to migration studies by conceptualizing deportation as epistemic exclusion.
**Abstract: This article builds on recent agnostic and ethnographic approaches to conspiracy theories in an attempt, first, to think through their relation not only to mis-, dis-, and malinformation but also to social inequality, and, second, to establish conspiracy theories as a potentially valuable form of social critique in pluralist democracies. I outline three ways in which conspiracy theorising can be of value to the production of knowledge, to participation in society, and to research in the social sciences and humanities. These can aid in understanding and addressing inequalities, because they show that conspiracy theories are not a cause but a symptom of power inequality, and can even be seen as a form of resistance to inequality.
Registration
Participation is free of charge, but registration is required. The registration form is available at https://forms.office.com/e/MJSnFxwDnU . Please register by April 3 at the latest.
Practical information
This workshop will be held at RTL LUXEMBOURG, 43, Boulevard Pierre Frieden, L-1543 Luxembourg
Concerning the practicalities, there are bus stops « Léon Thyes », « Simone de Beauvoir ») close to the RTL building (43, Boulevard Pierre Frieden) and a tram stopping at around 10 minutes walking from the building. All information on public transport is available on the website: https://www.mobiliteit.lu/en/ .
Organising committee
This workshop is organised by the EDMO BELUX team of UCLouvain Saint-Louis Bruxelles (Sabri Derinöz and Geoffroy Patriarche) and RTL Lëtzebuerg (Luc Marteling and Viviane Folscheid), with the support of the EDMO BELUX team of Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Trisha Meyer, Nadia Tjahja, and Basak Van Hove).
