By Janet Ekstract
İSTANBUL (TURKISH JOURNAL)- Turkey hosted the Stratcom Summit 2021 on December 11-12 which was an international gathering that consisted of 112 speakers from 41 international organizations with a distinguished audience of over 3,000, according to Turkey’s Communications Directorate. The purpose of the summit was to call attention to compelling policies, issues, challenges and trends within a strategic communication ecosystem.
Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan addressed the conference virtually expressing his dismay at the plethora of disinformation being disseminated on social media that the Turkish leader reiterated, can ruin a person’s life. Topics covered included strategic communication, public diplomacy, digital diplomacy, metaverse, nation branding, disinformation, new media, open intelligence, new communication technologies and trends as well strategic marketing and political communication.
Conference speakers included senior executives and officials from NATO, the EU, UNICEF, the UN Environment Program and prominent think-tanks. Turkey’s Communications Director Fahrettin Altun commented that the summit will contribute to Turkey’s brand value in the sector of strategic communication. Altun displayed a brief video message on Twitter that read: “The Stratcom Summit aims to create a year around platform that takes a 360 degree approach for tackling pressing issues and new challenges.” Altun said that the art of communication must respond to new realities. He also emphasized that the technological developments and new platforms are what inform our life and disinformation. He added that fake news and social media manipulation present new challenges that must be dealt with0
