St. Mary’s College of Maryland’s Center for the Study of Democracy and the Hilda C. Landers Library, Archives and Media Center will host virtually Harvard’s Shorenstein Center Research Director Joan Donovan for a lecture and discussion on Monday, April 19 from 5:30 – 7 p.m. Please register at: http://bit.ly/drjoandonovan.
Donovan will be the first speaker for the Media Literacy, Civic Engagement and Democracy project that will continue next year. Titled “Cache Me If You Can: Media Manipulation in Practice,” the lecture will cover the media manipulation lifecycle: from the origins of a disinformation campaign and how it’s seeded across the web to its amplification, mitigation and adaptation. Donovan will demonstrate how this lifecycle plays out by walking through case studies from the Media Manipulation Casebook. After dissecting discrete disinformation campaigns, Donovan will discuss their implications and what’s needed to combat media manipulation.
Donovan is the research director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. She leads the Technology and Social Change Project (TaSC), which explores how media manipulation is a means to control public conversation, derail democracy and disrupt society. TaSC conducts research, develops methods and facilitates workshops for journalists, policy makers, technologists and civil society organizations on how to detect, document and debunk media manipulation campaigns.
The Center for the Study of Democracy, directed by Antonio Ugues Jr., associate professor of political science, explores contemporary and historical issues associated with the ideas of democracy, liberty and justice in national and international contexts. It supports research that enhances our understanding of liberal democracy and its critics. The Center facilitates activities that strengthen democracy and the rule of law; enhance security and individual freedoms; invigorate the civil society; encourage free enterprise; and increase economic, environmental, educational and cultural equity. The Center is a joint project of St. Mary’s College and Historic St. Mary’s City. For more information on these or other events presented by the Center for the Study of Democracy, email democracy@smcm.edu.
