Meme Wars: Disinformation, Media Manipulation, and Political Futures
April 12, 2023
5:00 p.m.
270 at CU Boulder
Featuring Joan Donovan & Brandi Collins-Dexter
This event features two Harvard-based scholar-activsts who take seriously media that others would prefer to ignore, from the utterances of Kanye West to online havens of White nationalism. Together, they will guide an exploration of how the tactics and ideas circulating in some of culture's most dangerous spaces could be shaping the political possibilities of the future.
Brandi Collins-Dexter is associate director of research at the The Technology and Social Change Project (TaSC) housed in Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. Her first book, Black Skinhead: Reflections on Blackness and Our Political Future, explores Black participation in democracy and the US economy, with particular focus on the role technology, media and economics play in improving or deteriorating community health. Brandi is a former Senior Campaign Director at Color Of Change where she oversaw the media, culture, and economic justice departments.
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Dr. Joan Donovan is the Research Director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. Dr. Donovan leads the field in examining internet and technology studies, online extremism, media manipulation, and disinformation campaigns. She leads The Technology and Social Change Project (TaSC), which explores how media manipulation is a means to control public conversation, derail democracy, and disrupt society. She is the co-author of Meme Wars: The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy in America.
This event is sponsored by the Media Economies Design Lab in the Department of Media Studies, in partnership with the program in the .
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