At the second Evening University in the summer semester, we will open a discussion on the state of critical thinking in contemporary society

 

In today's information age, which in many ways can be called post-factual, we are inundated with hundreds of pieces of information on a daily basis. The ability to think critically, to sort through information independently and not to be influenced by manipulation, conspiracies, hoaxes or propaganda is thus becoming more important than ever.

It's about why we as a society have reached a point where we can question even basic scientific facts, how the way we think is changing in the age of social media and the proliferation of misinformation, and how critical thinking can help us through it all, we will talk with Beata Balogová, editor-in-chief of the daily SME, Monika Prostináková Hossová, educator and media education expert, Samuel " Vedátor" Kováčik, theoretical physicist and science populariser , and Ondrej Schütz, director of the Slovak Debating Association.

The debate entitled Critical Thinking in Danger will take place on Tuesday, 15 April at 19.00 in the premises of Malý Berlin at Štefánikova 4 in Trnava. Admission is free for all visitors.

Beata Balogová is a Slovak journalist and editor-in-chief of the daily SME since 2014. She studied journalism at Columbia University in New York, and thanks to a Fulbright scholarship she also worked at the University of Missouri in Columbia, USA. In the past, she worked as editor-in-chief of the English-language newspaper The Slovak Spectator. She publishes commentaries on social events and politics, for which she won the European Journalism Award in the opinion and commentary category in 2020. She actively advocates for press freedom and the protection of journalists at home and abroad.

Monika Prostináková Hossová works as a teacher at the Department of Media Education at the Faculty of Mass Media Communication at the University of St. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, where she graduated from all three levels of higher education. Her research focuses on the development of media, information and digital literacy through new media not only in Slovakia but also in the European Union countries. She also focuses on the phenomena of post-factual society, critical thinking and the use of new media in the educational process.

Samuel "Vedátor" Kováčik is a Slovak theoretical physicist and popularizer of science. He studied physics at the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics of Comenius University in Bratislava. He has worked as a researcher at Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, and currently works as a postdoctoral fellow at Masaryk University in Brno and as a lecturer at Comenius University. He is the founder of Vedátor, a science-popularization project dedicated to communicating scientific knowledge to the general public through articles, podcasts, lectures and books.

Ondrej Schütz is the director of the Slovak Debating Association, an educational non-profit organization focused on promoting critical thinking and the only organization in Slovakia that provides academic debate for primary, secondary and university students. He studied political science and international relations at Masaryk University in Brno. He has many years of experience in training and tutoring in argumentation, critical thinking and communication. In 2012 he was the winner of the Academic Debating Championships of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, in 2013 and 2014 he was the coach of the Slovak national team at the World Debating Championships in Turkey and Thailand.