2019 Story of the Year: The Fracturing of America’s Public Narrative
Air Dates: December 16-22, 2019 Each year since 2013, the Pell Center has announced the public narrative that has had the biggest impact on public affairs in the previous twelve months, the “Story of the Year.” This year, co-hosts Jim Ludes and G. Wayne Miller agreed the story of the year is not a single story, but a greater phenomenon: the fracturing of America’s public narrative. The broad outlines … Read More
The Future of Media with Justin Hendrix
Air Dates: October 20-22, 2018 We live in a world awash with media of all types. If we’re honest, it seems like we have not yet mastered the current onslaught of social media in public life. Justin Hendrix warns that, for good or for bad, the future is coming. Justin Hendrix is Executive Director of NYC Media Lab, connecting media and tech companies with NYC universities to drive digital media … Read More
Caroline Orr Gets to the Core of Disinformation
Air Dates: July 28-30, 2018 According to the Director of National Intelligence, Russia attacked American democracy in 2016, and the attacks continue to this day. The information the intelligence community used to draw that conclusion is classified—but guest, Caroline Orr uses an incredible array of open-source information and data analytics to produce a sophisticated understanding of the political warfare targeting the United States. Caroline Orr is a freelance journalist, researcher, … Read More
Citizens Must Be Sophisticated Consumers of News
“There’s No Way to Report Many of the Fastest-Spreading Las Vegas Conspiracy Theories on Faceebook” | Quartz “Facebook and Google Pledged to Stop Fake News. So Why Did They Promote Las Vegas-shooting Hoaxes?” | Los Angeles Times “Russia’s Hybrid Warriors Got the White House. Now They’re Coming for America’s Town Halls” | Foreign Policy “These are the Facebook Posts Russia Used to Undermine Hillary Clinton’s Campaign | Think Progress “Fake … Read More
The Onus of Choice: Picks of the Week
Facebook Wants Users to Help It Weed Out Fake News | Forbes Jack Dorsey says Twitter is not responsible for Trump’s election, but it’s ‘complicated’ | CNBC Reddit moves against ‘toxic’ Trump fans | BBC Twitter bans multiple ‘alt-right’ accounts | engadget 2016 was not a good year to be a tech company. Twitter’s struggling to profit, Facebook is still reeling from its massive fake news debacle, and major web … Read More
The Internet’s Eye
Events happen before our eyes. “Over there,” as sung by American men off to fight the world wars, no longer exists. “Over there” now plays out in the living rooms, cubicles and pockets of a technologically saturated world. Television broadcasts have been “live” since the 1950s and the distance across the globe and back has shrunk ever since. The world is the smallest it has ever been. Socially, people are … Read More
Upcoming Roundtable | ISIS and Social Media
Challenging the power of traditional news outlets, social media networks have given those involved in international conflicts access to rapid-fire distribution methods and a worldwide audience. But as extremist groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (also called ISIS or ISIL) use YouTube, Twitter, and other social media networks to distribute violent content that some call visual terrorism, a number of questions arise: Do social media companies have … Read More