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Communications

How did echo chambers influence the 2020 election?
A close-up image of a hand holding a mobile phone, with the words "News," "Business," Politics" and "Sports" visible on the screen. Next to the phone is a cup of coffee. In the background are blurred open books.

How did echo chambers influence the 2020 election?

Research from the Annenberg School for Communication shows that people are consuming news from more diverse sources, but many don’t consume any news at all. It’s too soon to tell what role that played in the recent race for president.

Michele W. Berger , Julie Sloane

Enough with ‘both sides’! Faux-neutral journalism is no way to fight the truth-deniers

Enough with ‘both sides’! Faux-neutral journalism is no way to fight the truth-deniers

Victor Pickard of the Annenberg School for Communication spoke about corporate media’s reluctance to confront how their newsrooms covered the Trump era. “We must look seriously at the role they have played in normalizing fascistic politics—as well as the structural factors that cause these institutions to predictably fail in advancing democratic aims,” he said.

Making sense of the election
A mail worker sorts through a large pile of mail-in ballots.

A panel of Penn political scientists helped a virtual audience make sense of the presidential election and what comes next.

Making sense of the election

Penn political scientists helped a virtual audience process polling, voter turnout, litigation, and a chaotic presidential election.

Kristen de Groot

Confusion and conflict stir online after Trump’s premature claim of victory

Confusion and conflict stir online after Trump’s premature claim of victory

Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center spoke about the influence of fringe platforms on perceptions of the election. “You have to get buy-in from the mainstream to have big cultural impact,” she said. “Most people are watching the networks, not social media streams.”

Mail-in ballots, foreign interference, and the 2020 election
Person sitting at a large desk that includes a phone and some other items. Picture frames line a desk in the background.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson is the Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, and program director of the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands.

Mail-in ballots, foreign interference, and the 2020 election

In a Q&A, Kathleen Hall Jamieson discusses what we learned from the election four years ago plus how journalists can responsibly share hacked content and what role the public at large can play.

Michele W. Berger

Securing the future of independent news
Facade of New York Times building with lettering on the face of the building.

Securing the future of independent news

New York Times outgoing CEO Mark Thompson discusses threats to the news business and how it can fight back

Kristen de Groot

Inside the Lincoln Project’s war room

Inside the Lincoln Project’s war room

Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center spoke about the Lincoln Project’s outreach to Republican voters. “They’re basically mining everything you can reasonably mine from the available news cycle and the anxieties of the moment. We’ve never seen that before.”

Virtual reality trains public to reverse opioid overdoses
person holding a virtual reality headset to their eyes.

The School of Nursing offers a virtual reality simulation to train responders how to administer Narcan, an overdose-reversing drug. (Pre-pandemic image)

Virtual reality trains public to reverse opioid overdoses

A group of interdisciplinary researchers from Penn and the Philadelphia Department of Public Heath have developed a virtual reality immersive video training aimed to save lives from opioid overdoses.

Ashton Yount

COVID-19 has more Americans thinking about science. Could this be a Sputnik moment?

COVID-19 has more Americans thinking about science. Could this be a Sputnik moment?

Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center spoke about how the evolution in the U.S. in recent years of perceptions of climate change, with almost 70% of Americans now agreeing that human activity is a contributing factor. “The evidence has become clearer. The communication has become more effective. And people have experienced events in their lives that they attribute to climate change,” she said. “That suggests this isn’t a hopeless task.”

Radio magic: A summer internship at WXPN’s ‘World Cafe’
Student standing with arms crossed in front of foliage.

Leanna Tilitei, a sophomore who plans to declare a major in communications, was a programming intern at Penn’s public radio station WXPN during the summer. 

Radio magic: A summer internship at WXPN’s ‘World Cafe’

As a summer intern for WXPN’s ‘World Cafe,’ sophomore Leanna Tilitei worked remotely as a member of the programming team helping to produce the ‘nation’s most listened-to-public radio music program.’

Louisa Shepard