Annenberg School @ Penn

Delighted to announce that Deen Freelon will be joining our faculty, beginning on July 1. He will be the Allan Randall Freelon Sr. Professor of Communication, a chair named after his great-grandfather who graduated from Penn almost exactly 100 years ago. Read all about it!: https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/political-and-computational-researcher-deen-freelon-join-annenberg-school-faculty

It me! #AOIR2023SelfieGame #AOIR2023

Just got out of a great talk by Juan Llamas-Rodriguez at #AOIR2023 talking about the term "whitexican," a term that sprung up on social media to encapsulate an array of concerns about class and race in the definition of what it means to be Mexican. Even if the term does nothing more than mock tone-deaf social media posts, Juan made the case that the term provides language with which to discuss and dismantle racialism in Mexico.

Many thought-provoking ideas from Kat Higgins and Sarah Banet-Weiser this morning at #AOIR2023 about the ways that our hypermediated world can allow victims of sexual violence to be heard, but then those same platforms give voice to counterattacks by those accused. As platforms algorithms favor outrage, arguments by the accused tend to dominate, whether by real people or bots. There's a lot to know, so you can read it in their new book, Believability, out now from Polity!

Some stellar faculty presentations this morning at #AoIR2023: Dean Sarah Banet-Weiser speaking on Misogyny, Survivorship, and Believability on Digital Platforms - she's up next! - and Juan Llamas Rodriguez speaking on the racial politics of digital culture in Mexico at 10:30. Juan got stuck in an elevator last night, so show the guy some support!

Researchers from around the world explored media from the "long 1990s" at CARGC's recent symposium, a satellite event of #AoIR2023: https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/forums-dial-and-satire-1990s-internet-global-south

The Executive Program in Digital Media for Social Impact is accepting applications for the 2024 cohort. A partnership between the Annenberg School for Communication the School of Social Policy and Practice, this executive program helps changemakers not only master their digital tools, but develop a digital practice that reflects their goals and values. Early bird deadline is November 19. The program starts February 1 and will run through June 2024.
https://www.asc.upenn.edu/research/centers/executive-program-digital-media-social-impact/next-steps

New publication alert! Research from the Communication Neuroscience Lab finds that, even across cultures, neural models can reliably predict whether an article is popular on Facebook: https://bit.ly/3rXe6JI