Some News, Regrettably in the Form of a Letter |
Hello friends and colleagues -
This is Alex Engler, and I regret to inform you that I subscribed you to a newsletter. Recognizing that this is a grave transgression of your personal digital sovereignty, let me explain myself (or unsubscribe, I will not be mad).
I'm now the Executive Director of Penn's new Center on Media, Technology, and Democracy and I think you'll care about what we're working on. I could also use your help in getting started (in 30 seconds or less).
So, Penn has an incredibly deep bench of scholars producing rigorous research on the information ecosystem (this is what attracted the generous support of the Knight Foundation, which co-funds us with Penn).
In the ballpark of 25 faculty plus scores of PhD students and PostDocs are developing a body of data-driven evidence on the information environment. This research diagnoses underlying ills and offers practical interventions for improving the reliability of information for a more informed citizenry; for reducing partisanship and preventing political violence; for designing technology that supports civil and empathetic debate; for protecting freedom of speech and expression for a robust public dialogue. That is, interventions that strengthen the foundations of democracy.
Arming You With Evidence
Primarily, this newsletter aims to arm you with that evidence, which tells us that political echo chambers are real, but far worse for TV news consumers than on social media. That Twitter/X’s recommender algorithm may offer less, but higher quality, news than a chronological feed. That listening to (rather than reading) the news leads to a negativity bias. That the emerging multi-platform media environment widens the news gap between news consumers and those that eschew the news. That AI models used for content moderation disagree markedly on what constitutes hate speech.
Our Center seeks to foster and support that research, and further translate it into action that supports democracy, in the spirit of (Penn founder) Ben Franklin’s adage, “if you can keep it.”
|
Small things you can do to help, in 30 seconds or less: |
-
Help us build community by forwarding this newsletter to a colleague or compatriot and saying they should sign-up!
-
Share the social media announcements for our first public event, The Democratic Repercussions of Media Fragmentation, on October 21st: LinkedIn / Bluesky / Twitter and sign up for the online public event and attend!
|
Ok, the call to action is over. I hope you feel sufficiently mustered. And now that it’s out of the way, here are some updates from the Center.
|
-
We have launched the Center website, which you can see here: https://infodem.upenn.edu/ (bookmark us!). Bug reports can be sent to the lead web developer (me).
-
We are launching a public event series, as foreshadowed above. These events aim to disseminate Penn's research and translate its findings such that media institutions, technology platforms, governments, and the public can make choices that lead to a healthier information ecosystem. Our next two events are:
-
Democratic Repercussions of Media Fragmentation on October 21st. Register to attend in-person or online. The media landscape continues to experience fragmentation, with an ever-expanding number of outlets, influencers, podcasters, online platforms, and AI systems – all while traditional mass media has become more ideologically aligned. Does this present an opportunity to break apart political echo chambers, or will media fragmentation undermine what shared reality we have left?
-
Generative AI in the Information Ecosystem on November 14th. Register to attend in-person or online. The proliferation of genAI is causing profound changes in the information ecosystem and in the economics of media. Billions of people are exposed to the outputs of Generative AI every day, while traditional newspapers are suffering from falling viewership and ad revenue. What does the future of genAI mean for information quality, for journalism, and for democracy?
-
We're also working on a research digest, an updated compendium of all the fantastic empirical research of the information ecosystem that the Penn community is producing. For now, I'll just share the coverage in Fast Company of a recent paper by Associate Professor Yphtach Lelkes, who evaluates a range of LLMs and finds they disagree on what constitutes hate speech.
- For those of you with research collaborators at Penn, we have opened the request for proposals for the Information and Democracy Research Grants (lead applicant must have a Penn affiliation at one of our six schools) – to support quantitative research of the information ecosystem and its impact on democracy.
|
The Penn Center on Media, Technology, and Democracy is committed to independent research on the information ecosystem and its impact on democracy.
Our mission is to advance our collective understanding of the information landscape through cutting-edge science—then leverage that research to foster a more informed society and strengthen the foundations of democracy. We focus on the media organizations and the online platforms, the incentives and the algorithms, that determine which ideas and beliefs spread, and which don’t. The Center’s faculty and scholars are distinguished by their use of emerging technology for data-driven research of the information ecosystem, including novel data collections, large-scale cloud computing, and innovative applications of AI.
The Center is also the interdisciplinary hub for media, technology, and democracy scholarship and impact at the University of Pennsylvania, bringing together dozens of scholars across seven schools and centers:
|
- The School of Engineering and Applied Science
- The Penn Carey Law School
- The Annenberg School for Communication
- The Annenberg Public Policy Center
- The Wharton School
- The School Arts and Sciences
- The School of Social Policy and Practice
|
|
|
Manage your preferences | Opt Out using TrueRemove™
Got this as a forward? Sign up to receive our future emails.
View this email online.
|
220 South 33rd Street 1B Towne Building | Philadelphia, PA 19104 US
|
|
|
This email was sent to .
To continue receiving our emails, add us to your address book.
|
| |
|
|
