1.21
Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences
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.
Latin American Green New Deal
Latin American Green New Deal
Daniel Aldana Cohen, an assistant professor of sociology in the School of Arts & Sciences, organized and moderated an event on the Latin American Green New Deal, rethinking recession recovery and carbon emissions reduction.
Housing initiative fuels cooperation between cities during pandemic
Housing initiative fuels cooperation between cities during pandemic
Vincent Reina and Amy Castro Baker are working with the U.S. cities, including Philadelphia, through the Housing Initiative at Penn to design a housing assistance plan both during the pandemic and after.
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
Indigenous views of Christopher Columbus
Indigenous views of Christopher Columbus
Members of Penn’s Indigenous community discuss their views of Christopher Columbus and how Indigenous people have suffered from Columbus-style colonialism.
England, Wales, Scotland among nations with highest death toll from COVID-19 pandemic
England, Wales, Scotland among nations with highest death toll from COVID-19 pandemic
An international team including Penn demographer Michel Guillot found that from mid-February through May, 21 industrialized nations combined saw an 18% increase in deaths, or 206,000 more people dying from all causes than would have been expected had the pandemic not occurred.
A new initiative to preserve African American civil rights heritage sites
A new initiative to preserve African American civil rights heritage sites
The Center for the Preservation of Civil Rights Sites will be led by Faculty Director Randall Mason, an associate professor in the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation, alongside renowned preservationist Brent Leggs, who is named senior adviser and adjunct associate professor.
Presidential health and contested elections
Presidential health and contested elections
Political scientist Rogers Smith gives some background on why the 25th Amendment was established, who can invoke it, and what happens if an election’s results are contested by a sitting president.
Fostering kittens, plus more side gigs for good
Fostering kittens, plus more side gigs for good
Around nearly any corner, the Penn community’s selflessness shines through, despite months apart due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump’s 2016 rhetoric and Latino immigrant civic behavior
Trump’s 2016 rhetoric and Latino immigrant civic behavior
A new book by political scientist Michael Jones-Correa sheds light on immigrants’ attitudes before, during, and after Trump’s election.
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.”
FULL STORY →
Philadelphia Inquirer
From the fashion to the flags, Joe Biden’s inauguration presents a vision of a unified America
Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw of the School of Arts & Sciences weighed in on some of the outfits seen at President Biden’s inauguration. “There was a real conscious choice not to wear polarizing colors,” she said. “There was a sense of merging red and blue into one to visualize the bringing together of the country. These two hues have been used to politically separate us into tribes. This was a visual end to that.”
FULL STORY →
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.”
FULL STORY →
The New York Times
Go ahead. Fantasize
Martin Seligman of the School of Arts & Sciences said dreaming about the future can help people live well in the present. “Imagining the future—we call this skill prospection—and prospection is subserved by a set of brain circuits that juxtapose time and space and get you imagining things well and beyond the here and now,” he said. “The essence of resilience about the future is: How good a prospector are you?”
FULL STORY →
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.”
FULL STORY →