Technology, Media and Democracy: Addressing the Threats to an Informed Electorate

Winter/Spring Semester, 2021

From believing the US election results to getting reliable information about Covid-19 and the vaccines, trustworthy information plays an immense role in our society. But our information ecosystem and platforms are not yet up to the task. With the rise of misinformation and fake news, with rampant online abuse and harassment, and with the decline of news media, the quality of online information available to us has been rapidly deteriorating. Our city-wide collaboration, now in its 4th year, seeks to understand the impact of our information ecosystem on democracy and our society, and create new technologies that address the delicate balance between technology, media, and democracy. 

The course brings together journalism, design, media studies, and technical disciplines to understand the various threats posed by the information ecosystem to our democracy, and attempt to address these challenges using technical and computational methods and techniques.

Public Lecture Series

A main component of the course would be a public, virtual lecture series on Monday evenings, 7-8:30pm. Sign up to our mailing list to get invited. Past years’ speakers included figures from technology and media including, among others, Marc Lacey (New York Times), Clint Watts (contributor, CNN), Brian Stelter (CNN), Claire Wardle (First Draft News), Donie O’Sullivan (CNN), Craig Silverman (BuzzFeed), David McCraw (New York Times), and Ali Velshi (MSNBC).

Partner Universities and Student Programs

We believe addressing a set of problems this challenging requires multiple interdisciplinary perspectives. We expect that the core course will bring together over 100 students from multiple universities and academic programs, including:

  • Cornell Tech: MS Connective Media, MEng Computer Science

  • New School (Parsons): MFA Design and Technology, MS Data Visualization, MFA Transdisciplinary Design, MA Design Studies

  • Columbia Journalism School

  • New York University: ITP, IDM Masters programs

  • CUNY Graduate School of Journalism: Social Journalism Program, Entrepreneurial Journalism Program

  • CUNY-Queens: MA Media Studies, MA TV/Radio (Brooklyn College)