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with Sam Woolley and the Center for media Engagement By Alex Roeder, Chair Pair & former Editor-in- Chief
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or over a decade, Samuel Woolley, assistant professor and program director at the propaganda research lab, has been doing important work researching and combating misinformation and disinformation. His research spans across many platforms but centers around artificial intelligence, social media and journalism organizations. Woolley works with Moody’s Center for Media Engagement to conduct research and come up with solutions to make the information ecosystem better function. This includes empowering students to educate themselves on misinformation and disinformation while encouraging them to take an active role in changing the information landscape. The center, from which much of Woolley’s work stems, exists to help democratize journalism. The research conducted there focuses on political communication. It’s about studying (false content) using empirical methods to study how this content spreads, who spreads it and why, and to study what the effects of this are upon society,” Woolley said. “How does all of this harmful, misleading, manipulative content online affect public opinion, especially during elections?”
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Woolley said there are three avenues to study in this research — producers of content, the content itself and how the public receives and processes the information.
Fall 2023 Issue
