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Louisa Shepard
News Officer
lshepard@upenn.edu
Communications
The art of talking about science
Paul Offit of Penn Medicine and CHOP offers five tips for better communicating tough scientific topics to the public—and standing up for science in the process.
The Knight Commission calls to rebuild trust in democracy with transparency, responsibility
Penn President Amy Gutmann joined 26 other national leaders to consider why the age of Facebook and “fake news” has pushed faith in government and the media to historic low, and how to mend the rift.
The language of climate change—and the Anthropocene
Hanna E. Morris, a doctoral student at the Annenberg School for Communication who researches environmental communication, explains the sudden rise of ‘Anthropocene’ as the latest buzzword in the climate dialogue.
25 years later, a legacy presses forward
It separates fiction from facts and sets standards for journalists. Since its formation in 1993, the Annenberg Public Policy Center has surely made its mark.
Can a critic who becomes a believer sway others? The case of genetically modified foods
A study from researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center shows that a conversion message, when a strong advocate for one side of a controversial issue in science publicly announces that they now believe the opposite, can influence public attitudes toward genetically modified foods.
The science behind Facebook’s viral #10YearChallenge
Jonah Berger, an associate professor of marketing at The Wharton School, and author of ‘Contagious: Why Things Catch On,’ discusses why people are suddenly eager to talk aging on social media.
A conversation with Mr. Fish
Penn Today kicks off its “Office Hours” podcast series with a one-on-one chat with Annenberg School for Communication lecturer and outspoken political cartoonist, Dwayne Booth.
‘One of the highlights of my life’
As his time as dean of the Annenberg School comes to a close, Michael X. Delli Carpini reflects on the impact he hopes he’s had.
Social scientists trade academic silos for shared workspace
Faculty and grad students in the new Social and Behavioral Sciences Initiative have access to two state-of-the-art labs, grants, and a collaborative environment aimed at creating a vibrant research community.
Getting science right in the fake news era
Over his career as a science journalist, Carl Zimmer has seen legitimate science reporting denied and illegitimate science news taken as fact. In advance of a talk at Penn, Zimmer discusses the problem of misinformation and offers tips for avoiding being fooled by bogus science stories.
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In the News
Fast Co. Design
The Magic Number of People Needed to Create Social Change
The Annenberg School for Communication’s Damon Centola was cited for his research on social change, which found that just 25 percent of a given group would need to adopt a new norm to convince everyone else to follow.
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Reuters
Viral content-vaccine scandal test Beijing’s grip on information control
The Annenberg School for Communication’s Kecheng Fang discussed the Chinese government’s failed attempts to suppress discourse about current events on WeChat, a popular messaging platform. “This is a guerrilla war. The government cannot tackle it just like it does traditional media,” said Fang.
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