Social Media

Who is falling for fake news?

New research from Wharton’s Ken Moon and Senthil Veeraraghavan recommends a data-driven solution for social media platforms to deal with fake news.

From Knowledge at Wharton

TV news top driver of political echo chambers in U.S.

Duncan Watts and colleagues found that 17% of Americans consume television news from partisan left- or right-leaning sources compared to just 4% online. For TV news viewers, this audience segregation tends to last month over month.

Michele W. Berger

Add a friend on social media

See the latest happenings of Penn’s new president Liz Magill on her Facebook and Instagram.

Penn Today Staff

Tech’s role in Russia’s war on Ukraine

Media scholar Courtney Radsch says tech platforms should have been faster to address Russian government propaganda, misinformation, and censorship.

Alina Ladyzhensky

Combating health misinformation

A new article from Penn Nursing explains how unreliable and false health information accelerated during the pandemic, and how social media platforms amplified the problem.

From Penn Nursing News

How social media firms moderate their content

Wharton marketing professors Pinar Yildirim and Z. John Zhang, and Wharton doctoral candidate Yi Liu show how a social media firm’s content moderation strategy is influenced mostly by its revenue model.

From Knowledge at Wharton

What can be done to prevent and resist image-based abuse?

A virtual symposium held by Annenberg’s Center for Media at Risk and the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative brought together experts from around the world to analyze the abuse commonly referred to as “revenge porn.”

From Annenberg School for Communication

What big data reveals about online extremism

Homa Hosseinmardi and her colleagues at Penn’s Computational Social Science Lab studied browsing data from 300,000 Americans to gain insights into how online radicalization occurs, and to help develop solutions.

From Annenberg School for Communication



In the News


WHYY (Philadelphia)

Many Gen Zers deal with higher rates of mental health challenges and firearm suicides, according to a new report

PIK Professor Desmond Patton says that more young people are speaking openly about mental health, especially on social media. College of Arts and Sciences first-year Anvesha Guru says that cultural attitudes about guns and mental health need more than a simple shift.

FULL STORY →



The New York Times

An epidemic of vicious school brawls, fueled by student cellphones

PIK Professor Desmond Upton Patton says that many schools don’t have a playbook for addressing student violence or helping pupils engage more positively online, in part because few researchers are studying the issue.

FULL STORY →



Stat

Social media misinformation is scaring women about birth control

In an opinion essay, postdoc Emily Pfender of the Leonard Davis Institute and Perelman School of Medicine cautions that social media can set back women’s health by perpetuating fear and misinformation instead of empowering informed choices.

FULL STORY →



ABC News

Can Harris ride memes all the way to the White House?

Pinar Yildirim of the Wharton School says that people who vote for the Democratic Party tend to skew younger, which makes them harder to reach through traditional media.

FULL STORY →



Philadelphia Inquirer

After the Great Valley social media scandal, we must balance free speech with ‘digital citizenship’

Jonathan Zimmerman of the Graduate School of Education writes that school districts must listen to what students have to say in order to craft good policies around online student speech.

FULL STORY →



Newsweek

There is one major element missing from the debate on kids and social media

In an opinion essay, PIK Professor Desmond Upton Patton says that gun violence needs to be part of the conversation about how smartphones and social media impact young people.

FULL STORY →