Co-director Kristen Lewis will speak about Measure of America’s latest disconnected youth research at the Philadelphia Youth Network’s sixth National Reengagement Plus! Convening. The convening is sponsored by the National League of Cities and will focus on strategies to reengage young people disconnected from school and work.
Measure of America’s Sarah Burd-Sharps will speak at the National Association of Workforce Boards Annual Forum about Measure of America’s collaboration with the San Diego Workforce Partnership to address youth disconnection in San Diego.
The 2016 American elections intensified popular as well as scholarly interest in the relationship between media and democracy on topics like fake news, information bubbles, and algorithmic propaganda. "Social Media and Democracy: Assessing the State of the Field and Identifying Unexplored Questions" was the Media & Democracy program's inaugural event. It convened researchers as part of a two-day conference to assess the current literature on social media and democracy, and set a research agenda for the field moving forward. Conference chairs: Nate Persily, James B. McClatchy Professor of Law, Stanford University Diana Mutz, Samuel A. Stouffer Professor of Political Science …
The Anxieties of Democracy program's Working Group on Climate Change, in collaboration with Princeton University, hosted “Witnessing Professionals and Climate Change” a workshop on the ethics of professionals in the face of climate change. Chaired by Professor Nancy Rosenblum and Professor Melissa Lane, "Witnessing Professionals" featured panels with lawyers, scientists, public health, and university officials in order to discuss the role of professionals and institutions in combating climate change. Video proceedings of the workshop may be found here. Some of the presenters have also made lightly-edited transcripts of their remarks available (links in the agenda below). This event was made possible …
Safiya Umoja Noble, Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Southern California, gave a public talk on her new book, Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism, on Monday, May 14th at the Roosevelt House at Hunter College. Algorithms of Oppression contests the idea that search engines are unbiased marketplaces of ideas. Rather, Noble argues that search engines reflect the underlying power structures of the societies in which they are built, and often weaken the voices of historically underrepresented groups. Following Prof. Noble’s talk, Meredith Broussard, Assistant Professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, New York University and author of Artificial …
This workshop, held at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, was the third in a series of convenings organized as part of a collaboration between the SSRC's Anxieties of Democracy program and our namesake European partner program, Anxieties of Democracy, at the Swedish Institute for Futures Studies. The workshop explored political parties as an institution, seeking to assess their current state and explore their future. Topics included changes in the typical left-right cleavages of parties, the decline of traditional parties, the rise of populist parties, and the institutional and social contexts shaping political parties today, such as personalism, non-majoritarianism, …
The workshop on the State of Cubans Studies in the United States, which was organized in collaboration with John Jay College of the City University of New York and Cuba’s Revista Temas convened in Barcelona May 21-22, 2018 prior to the start of LASA. The workshop was a resounding success in accomplishing its stated purpose: to bring together scholars who reside in Cuba with those who reside outside the island for an intensive dialogue on the development of the field of Cuban Studies in the United States. A seminar on that same topic was held at Florida International University in …
The spread and correction of false information has historical roots in sensationalist journalism, political disagreement, foreign espionage, state, religious or ethnic propaganda, and partisan debates: a collection of approaches far richer than suggested by the phrase “fake news.” "The Consequences of Misinformation" was a symposium on the history, circulation, and management of misinformation (untruths circulated without the intention to deceive) and disinformation (untruths intended to deceive). The symposium was informed by social scientific and journalistic perspectives on the most effective means of understanding and countering false information, even as it explores the challenges in doing so. The panelists spoke to …
This workshop, held in Villa Vigoni, Italy, continued the partnership between SSRC's Anxieties of Democracy program and the Democratic Anxieties project supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Topics included problems of inequality in political involvement and representation; institutional performance, constitutional choice and democratic reforms; and the contexts of specific policy environments that make these challenges particularly visible.
The SSRC Cuba Program organized a meeting June 13 & 14, 2018 in New York City for the Ford Foundation’s Cuba portfolio. The meeting served as an opportunity for grantees to reflect on the current state of U.S.-Cuba relations as well as to share ideas and insights as we think about our work moving forward. In the past three years, there have been numerous changes, which have both aided as well as hindered our ability to work effectively in Cuba. In the wake of restored diplomatic relations, the Trump administration unveiled new measures to limit travel to Cuba and prohibit …
To mark the conclusion of the first year of Democratic Erosion, a cross-institutional collaborative course, a student conference was held at the Watson Institute at Brown University on August 29, 2018. Students at institutions participating in the Democratic Erosion consortium at the time were invited to apply to attend. The conference featured faculty-led seminars on syllabus materials, research presentations from Bright Line Watch and Texas A&M/USAID, breakout sessions and presentations where students generated research designs for projects about democratic erosion, and a debate about contentious issues related to democracy. Meghan Kallman delivered a keynote address on civic engagement. Democratic Erosion is a cross-institutional collaborative course …
Co-director Sarah Burd-Sharps will participate in a panel organized by NYU’s GovLab for NYC’s Open Data Week, along with representatives from the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City, Viacom, and the Sunlight Foundation. The “If You Build It, Will They Come? A Case for Demand-Driven Data” panel will discuss the demand for open data.
