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Louisa Shepard
News Officer
lshepard@upenn.edu
Communications
Echo chambers may not be as dangerous as you think
Research on the “wisdom of crowds” has found that access to information exchange can increase the likelihood that beliefs are accurate, even contentious partisan political beliefs, among homogenous groups.
The promise and pitfalls of 5G: Will it kill cable?
Wharton’s Kevin Werbach asks whether 5G technology will supercharge the “internet of things,” making it competitive with the fastest wired broadband networks.
Pokémon activates a unique part of the brain, offering insights into its structure
In a study of adults who played the game extensively as children, Penn and Stanford researchers discovered that a particular area of the visual cortex lights up when players view characters from the original version.
Kurdish is the newest class on the global language roster
A course taught by Annenberg doctoral student Mohammed Salih offered, for the first time at Penn, entrée into the basics of a language spoken by 30 million people worldwide.
The Israeli elections, explained
What’s next for Israel, and the stalled Middle East peace process, after this week’s Israeli elections? In a Q&A, experts Ian Lustick and Eytan Gilboa analyze the results and discuss what to expect.
The future of Annenberg, with John L. Jackson Jr. at the helm
Under his leadership, the school is poised to further engage in the pressing cultural, political, and ideological conversations happening in today’s unprecedented media landscape.
The single word most associated with negative hospital reviews
A Penn Medicine research team found that the word “told” was tied to almost 20 percent of poor reviews, pointing to the value points patients and their loved ones’ place on communication in health care settings.
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.
Media Contact
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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