Skip to Content Skip to Content

Communications

Correcting misperceptions about—and increasing empathy for—migrants
Young person pressing hands up against a border wall.

Participants’ erroneous beliefs about immigrants impacted their views on immigration policy and caused them to view immigrants with less empathy and to dehumanize them more. (Image: Max Bohme/Unsplash)

Correcting misperceptions about—and increasing empathy for—migrants

Americans dramatically overestimate the number of migrants affiliated with gangs and children being trafficked.

From Annenberg School for Communication

Partisan politics and the opioid epidemic: A social media analysis
Ball of red and blue prescription drug capsules.

Partisan politics and the opioid epidemic: A social media analysis

Researchers at Penn Medicine explored how partisanship might affect legislative progress on the opioid epidemic by analyzing the content of state legislators’ opioid-related social media posts over time.

From Penn LDI

How news coverage affects public trust in science
Person wearing a face mask seated on a park bench reads the newspaper while holding head in concern.

How news coverage affects public trust in science

News media reports about scientific failures that do not recognize the self-correcting nature of science can damage public perceptions of trust and confidence in scientific work.

From the Annenberg Public Policy Center

2021 cohort of Postdoctoral Fellows for Academic Diversity named
a photograph of Penn's college hall framed by green leaves during the summer

The Office of the Vice Provost for Research announces the 2021 cohort of Penn’s Postdoctoral Fellows for Academic Diversity, the largest in the program’s history thus far. This fellowship program is designed to help postdocs advance their careers while enriching the community of scholars here at Penn. 

2021 cohort of Postdoctoral Fellows for Academic Diversity named

The competitive program, managed by Office of the Vice Provost for Research, is designed to support early career researchers and scholars while enriching the Penn community.

Erica K. Brockmeier

AP says it is reviewing social media policies after firing

AP says it is reviewing social media policies after firing

Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center weighed in on the Associated Press’s employee social media guidelines after a journalist was fired from the organization. “I want to live in a world where people who are employed know what the rules are and what the boundaries are, and they are extraordinarily clear,” Jamieson said.

Biden vowed to ‘follow the science,’ but left many out with sudden mask guidance

Biden vowed to ‘follow the science,’ but left many out with sudden mask guidance

PIK Professor Ezekiel Emanuel commented on the CDC’s revised mask and social distancing guidelines. “It wasn’t well done,” he said. “Slowing this down would have been the prudent thing to improve the communication and ensure that all the considerations that were needed on such a momentous decision were in fact taken into account and that the administration had answers for the very, very obvious potential scenarios.”

Fox News viewers are getting mixed messages about whether to take the coronavirus vaccine

Fox News viewers are getting mixed messages about whether to take the coronavirus vaccine

Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center said people tend to trust the hosts of shows they regularly watch. “Combine that trust with ongoing exposure and reinforcement in other media channels, and a popular host who creates or reinforces concerns about a COVID vaccine or about COVID vaccination in general can reduce the likelihood of vaccination among devoted viewers,” she said.