Open Source Investigation Comes Of Age: Eliot Higgins Of Bellingcat

The inaugural Centre for Media, Politics and Communication Research Annual Public Lecture on Media and Citizenship.

"Open Source Investigation Comes of Age: Ukraine 2022" - a public lecture by Eliot Higgins, CEO of Bellingcat

Nottingham Contemporary, Weekday Cross, Nottingham. September 20th, 6.30pm.

How do we know which claims to believe, which sources are credible? Can we trust the "news"?In an age of disinformation, how can we hope to discover the truth?

Eliot Higgins’ citizen collective Bellingcat – an ‘intelligence agency for the people’ – gives us hope and practical tools to interrogate the evidence.

“Scattered across the globe, we are an online collective, investigating war crimes and picking apart disinformation, basing our findings on clues that are openly available on the Internet – in social media postings, in leaked databases, in free satellite maps. […] We have no agenda but we do have a credo: evidence exists and falsehoods exist, and people still care about the difference.” (Eliot Higgins, We Are Bellingcat, Bloomsbury)

Using this "OSINT" (open source intelligence) Higgins and the Bellingcat collective have pioneered techniques to verify information and establish what is real and what is not. It has led to ground breaking investigations on issues such as the downing of flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014 and the poisoning of Sergey and Julia Skripal in Salisbury UK in 2018. One of their most recent investigations is into the "revolt" by Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner Group in June this year. Find out more about Bellingcat - and its methods - here

This public lecture is free of charge, and open to all, and will be a refreshing antidote to ‘post-truth politics’ despair and will offer an insight into how we navigate the claims and counterclaims related to the current war in Ukraine.

The lecture will last approx 45 minutes and there will be a Q&A session followed by a drinks reception.

It marks the launch of the Centre for Media, Politics and Communication Research co-directed by Dr Jen Birks and Dr Natalie Martin.

The Nottingham Contemporary Art Gallery is in Nottingham city centre and is easily accessible by public transport.

This lecture is supported by the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies, and the School of Politics and International Relations, at the University of Nottingham where Eliot Higgins is an Honorary Fellow.

Tickets are free and can be booked through this Eventbrite link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/690771525227?aff=oddtdtcreator