This January, to celebrate the fifth year of the Assembly program, we invited five ongoing alumni project teams to return (virtually) to the Berkman Klein Center to participate in the Assembly Project Fellowship. These projects address the variety of topics that Assembly has tackled since its inception in 2017, including the ethics and governance of […]
Rapidly developing technologies can be an unprecedented force for good, but too often codify and amplify existing forms of racial inequality, discrimination, and bias. This free, online conference brings together researchers, policymakers, technologists, and advocates to address technology’s new threats to racial equity and new tools for a more just future. The conference is sponsored […]
Deen Freelon is an associate professor in the School of Media and Journalism. His research covers two major areas of scholarship: 1) political expression through digital media and 2) data science and computational methods for analyzing large digital datasets. He has authored or co-authored more than 30 journal articles, book chapters and public reports, in […]
In the wake of heightened online radicalization over the past several years, including the rise of far-right nationalism, violence, and harms to democracy globally, it is clear that technology platforms are playing an outsized role in amplifying racialized disinformation and fomenting real world consequences. As lawmakers and civil society grapple with the policy and legal […]
While the last year has seen broad-based calls for racial equity in the United States, protests often don’t always translate into policy outcomes. On Episode 41 of “The Future of Democracy,” Knight’s Evette Alexander will take a deep dive into how racial attitudes affect American political preferences with Dr. David C. Wilson, incoming dean of […]
In this seminar Dr. Krafft will report on a mixed methods study of the North American Flat Earther community, drawing on documents from two Flat Earth Society websites, three surveys, and participant observation at the 2018 Flat Earth International Conference. Across the three surveys they find that around 20-30% of respondents are at least to […]
You’ve seen it. That meme that seems just too good to be true. That outlandish story your family member prefaced with, “Can you believe he said that?” followed by a video link of unknown origin and vintage. We are in an era of misinformation — and even disinformation, when someone intentionally disseminates false or misleading […]
The trial of Derek Chauvin sparked national conversations about violent policing and racial injustice. In its wake, how should policy makers, police, and journalists respond? The New Yorker staff writer Jelani Cobb (Spring 2018 Shorenstein Writer in Residence) and BBC correspondent Tara McKelvey (Fall 2012 Shorenstein Fellow) — who both covered the trial from Minneapolis — will join […]
The rise of social media platforms has introduced another widespread phenomenon—the spread of misleading information. Whether introduced organically or deliberately, misinformation threatens the integrity of democratic journalism. Because misinformation has become a serious threat to governance, it requires interdisciplinary efforts and collaboration to mitigate. To this end, Indiana University’s Observatory on Social Media (OSoMe) researches […]
The media has long played an important role in a healthy democracy, providing citizens with access to accurate news and information that allows them to effectively participate in democratic processes. However, the growing threat from deepfakes and disinformation, from both foreign and domestic sources, threatens to overwhelm the ability of individuals to discern fact from […]