Our team participated in the iMEdD International Journalism Forum that was hosted by iMEdD – Incubator for Media Education and Development during 28-30 September in Athens, Greece.
Pavlos Sermpezis, Ilias Dimitriadis, and Stelios Karamanidis were among the main speakers on the panel discussion “Towards hybrid intelligence: AI-powered analysis of Greek political rhetoric”. This panel explored an innovative approach that blends human expertise with artificial intelligence to scrutinize the pre-election campaign speeches of Greece’s main political figures. The focus was on discussing how the teams of Datalab and iMEdD employed AI algorithms to categorize issues, sentiments, and rhetorical devices, while also identifying markers of polarization and populism. For example, sentiment analysis, topic detection, as well as a “ΘΑ-meter” (how many “will” has every political leader said in this campaign?) illustrate the results of the analysis. Overall, by comparing this data-driven analysis with traditional journalistic scrutiny, the aim has been to uncover new insights into the strategies and priorities of Greece’s political leadership.
An insightful discussion with the audience also took place, centered around the pros and cons of using chatGPT, challenges encountered during the analysis process, and insights provided with respect to the results of the Greek elections. Attendees of the event finally had the chance to visit the Datalab booth at the forum’s media village, and get informed on our lab’s latest work and activities.
