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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.
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.
Add a friend on social media
See the latest happenings of Penn’s new president Liz Magill on her Facebook and Instagram.
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.
Cyberattacks, Russia, and the changing face of war in the 21st century
Heli Tiirmaa-Klaar, a visiting fellow of Perry World House, shares her expertise in cybersecurity and how cyber methods are being utilized during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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.
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.
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.”
Ten years later, examining the Occupy movement’s legacy
For Jessa Lingel of the Annenberg School for Communication, a decade after Occupy Wall Street’s beginnings presented an opportunity for reflection, which she led this fall semester in a new course.
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.
In the News
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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