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Louisa Shepard
News Officer
lshepard@upenn.edu
Communications
The influence and importance of language
The influence and importance of language
Labels for what happened Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol were very different from those used to describe the Black Lives Matter movement or the 2020 election results. How much weight do individual words actually have? It depends on the context.
Delivering the news with humor makes young adults more likely to remember and share
Delivering the news with humor makes young adults more likely to remember and share
An Annenberg study finds when compared to nonhumorous news clips, viewers are not only more likely to share humorously-presented news, but they are also more likely to remember the content from these segments.
How researchers scrub Twitter for health data from real humans—not bots
How researchers scrub Twitter for health data from real humans—not bots
For more than 10 years, Graciela Gonzalez-Hernandez has been studying natural language across social media to inform clinical care, carefully sifting through language to determine which voices qualify as patient experiences.
Google News prioritizes national media over local
Google News prioritizes national media over local
A new study from the Annenberg School for Communication found that Google News prioritizes national media outlets over local media outlets in search results, even when users are searching for local topics.
How did echo chambers influence the 2020 election?
How did echo chambers influence the 2020 election?
Research from the Annenberg School for Communication shows that people are consuming news from more diverse sources, but many don’t consume any news at all. It’s too soon to tell what role that played in the recent race for president.
Making sense of the election
Making sense of the election
Penn political scientists helped a virtual audience process polling, voter turnout, litigation, and a chaotic presidential election.
Mail-in ballots, foreign interference, and the 2020 election
Mail-in ballots, foreign interference, and the 2020 election
In a Q&A, Kathleen Hall Jamieson discusses what we learned from the election four years ago plus how journalists can responsibly share hacked content and what role the public at large can play.
Securing the future of independent news
Securing the future of independent news
New York Times outgoing CEO Mark Thompson discusses threats to the news business and how it can fight back
Virtual reality trains public to reverse opioid overdoses
Virtual reality trains public to reverse opioid overdoses
A group of interdisciplinary researchers from Penn and the Philadelphia Department of Public Heath have developed a virtual reality immersive video training aimed to save lives from opioid overdoses.
Radio magic: A summer internship at WXPN’s ‘World Cafe’
Radio magic: A summer internship at WXPN’s ‘World Cafe’
As a summer intern for WXPN’s ‘World Cafe,’ sophomore Leanna Tilitei worked remotely as a member of the programming team helping to produce the ‘nation’s most listened-to-public radio music program.’
Media Contact
In the News
The Washington Post
On conservative talk radio, efforts to tone down inflammatory rhetoric appear limited
Brian Rosenwald of the School of Arts & Sciences weighed in on how conservative talk radio hosts will address the incoming Biden administration. “A Democratic administration equals a new boogeymen to focus on,” said Rosenwald. “You might have offhand references or conversation about Biden being an illegitimate president, but the focus won’t be on the ‘stolen election’ unless and until there is fresh news on the topic.”
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The Washington Post
The Trump presidency was marked by battles over truth itself. Those aren’t over
Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center said people can be primed to believe false information through repetition. “What Trump did was take tactics of deception and played to confirmation biases that were already circulating in our culture and embodied them in somebody who is president of the United States. He didn’t change what was available, but he changed its accessibility,” she said. “That crazed content has always been there. But it becomes dangerous when it is legitimized and when it has the power of the state behind it.”
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Huffington Post
Trump supporters’ main problem was never the economy
Research by Diana Mutz of the Annenberg School for Communication and School of Arts & Sciences found that people who voted for Trump in 2016 did so because of racial anxieties, not economic distress. “It’s the same old same old. White males have been the group with the most power in our country for a long, long time,” she said. “Change is hard.”
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The New York Times
The talk radio network that airs Dan Bongino and Mark Levin warned staff to stop ‘dog-whistle talk’
Brian Rosenwald of the School of Arts & Sciences spoke about Cumulus Media, a talk radio company that has instructed employees not to spread misinformation about the presidential election. “Cumulus has a big, broad set of interests—they have advertisers, sports contracts, nonconservative podcasts, dealings with the F.C.C. over station licensing,” Rosenwald said. “They understand that if you get involved in something that risks instigating violence, there’s a serious danger to the bottom line.”
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CBS News
How conspiracy theories fueled assault on U.S. Capitol
Dan Romer of the Annenberg School for Communications weighed in on how conspiracy theories led to the breach of the U.S. Capitol building. “In a way what happened yesterday is just a further demonstration of how [President Trump’s] supporters have accepted some of his assertions about conspiracies and are willing to act on them,” Romer said.
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WHYY (Philadelphia)
Masking and vaxxing for the public good
Damon Centola of the Annenberg School for Communication joined a conversation about how to promote healthy behaviors amid the pandemic.
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