Talks & Events
Upcoming Events
As part of our Good Systems work, Talia Stroud, Director of the Center for Media Engagement, Mary Neuburger, Chair of the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies, and Sharon Strover proposed to host monthly “Disinformation Network” meetings to convene the diverse group of people on campus working on disinformation-related research. The purpose of these meetings is to share what we are working on, to explore findings and to broaden opportunities to use our work. We would be delighted if you could join us. Meetings will convene January 29th, February 19th, March 11th, and April 15th. Speakers include Talia Stroud, Amelia Acker, and Trisha Moravec. These meetings are informal and will include light refreshments. – We are equipped for videoconferencing. On March 12 and 13, TIPI and UT’s Good System’s Initiative are collaborating with Harvard Kennedy’s Shorenstein Center on Media Politics and Public Policy to host a one day conference plus a one day workshop, Mapping Media Manipulation and Disinformation Campaigns. The conference keynote speaker and workshop leader is Dr. Joan Donovan from the Shorenstein Center. She is the director of the Technology and Social Change Research Project. Her keynote will be Drafted into the Meme Wars: Disinformation in US Elections. At UT, Amelia Acker (School of Information) and Sharon Strover (TIPI) are directing this effort as part of the Disinformation research group.
Both the conference and workshop will be at the Perry Castaneda Library Learning Lab 1 on the UT campus at 9 AM. The conference on Thursday, March 12 is open and free to the public, but the workshop on Friday, March 13 is limited to accepted applicants who must submit their application here.
Past Events
There is so much buzz about artificial intelligence, but what’s real and what’s fiction?
In this hands-on session about AI’s effects on science and society, Harvard researcher and artist Sarah Newman will help us explore scholarly and practical AI questions big and small, and lead participants through activities to help us visualize our ideas for answering those questions. She’ll help us think more creatively about these issues by guiding us through design exercises using unexpected materials. This will also be an opportunity for attendees to think through ongoing research ideas and explore the implications, positive and negative, of AI technologies.
If you are interested in participating in this event, please contact Dr. Sharon Strover at sharon.strover@austin.utexas.edu.
Good Systems is hosting a fireside chat with Tim Hwang, director of the Harvard-MIT Ethics and Governance of AI Initiative, and Professor Sharon Strover from the Moody College of Communication. Dubbed “The Busiest Man on the Internet” by Forbes, Hwang researches and writes about the social implications of artificial intelligence. Before joining the Harvard-MIT initiative, he served as Google’s global public policy lead on AI. His current work focuses on the geopolitical aspects of computational power and ensuring social justice in machine learning applications.
Following the fireside chat, we invite everyone to attend a reception to meet the Good Systems research team and learn about projects that will be launching this year. UT faculty and staff will also have the opportunity to network with colleagues from around campus and find out what opportunities exist for participating in this grand challenge.
This is a free event, but space is limited, so please reserve your spot today.
Join the Technology & Information Policy Institute as we host Samuel C. Woolley, Assistant Professor in the Journalism School at the Moody College of Communication. Professor Woolley will present his talk, Addressing the Next Wave of Computational Propaganda.
If you would like an invitation to attend, email trish.morrison@austin.utexas.edu.
Lunch provided with RSVP.
Samuel C. Woolley is an assistant professor at The University of Texas at Austin. He has affiliations as a research associate at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, as a visiting scholar at the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) at the University of California at Berkeley, and as a research affiliate at the Project for Democracy and the Internet at Stanford University.
Woolley’s research is focused on how emergent technologies are used in and around global political communication. His work on computational propaganda—the use of social media in attempts to manipulate public opinion—has revealed the ways in which a wide variety of political groups in the United States and abroad have leveraged tools such as bots and trending algorithms and tactics of disinformation and trolling in efforts to control information flows online. His projects on digital politics, automation/AI, social media, and political polarization have been funded by the Ford Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the New Venture Fund for Communications, and others. (more…)
Abstract: What have been the main approaches to the study of infrastructure that now combine to make the topic of such compelling socio-political, technological, media-informatic, cultural, historical, and artistic interest across the disciplines? In this talk, Alan Liu provides an introduction to “critical infrastructure studies,” focusing on why multi-disciplinary perspectives—sometimes tensely divergent in their premises even when converging to make, for example, a “bridge” or a “barrier”—are needed to imagine good infrastructure as the foundation for “good systems.” In the case of the University of Texas “Bridging Barriers” Grand Challenges initiative, for example, how many different ways are there to understand what a bridge or a barrier is good for (and for whom)?
Bio: Alan Liu is a Distinguished Professor in the English Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has worked in the areas of digital humanities, humanities advocacy, Romantic literature, and literary and cultural theory. His most recent book is Friending the Past: The Sense of History in the Digital Age (U. Chicago Press, 2018) He is the principal investigator of the “WhatEvery1Says” digital humanities project, a Mellon Foundation-funded initiative using machine learning to study public discourse about the humanities at big-data scales.
- Richelle Crotty & Alexis Schrubbe: A Band-Aid on the Digital Divide: Investigating Mobile Beacon and Library Mobile Hotspot Lending Programs as an Alternative for Internet Access
- Martin Riedl: Weaponizing Internet Governance: Comparing the German Network Enforcement Act and FOSTA-SESTA in the United States
- Hogeun Seo: Platform Rules: Samsung’s Platform Businesses in Global Smartphone Industry
Upcoming Moody College Events
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Disney Animation Careers - presentation by Jay Francis, VP - Current Series, Diversity, &...
BMC 2.106 Friday, February 21, 2020, 4 – 6pm Please join Disney Television Animation's Jay Francis, VP - Current Series, Diversity, & […]
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RTF Annual Gender & Sexuality Lecture: Dir. Jennifer Reeder screens & discusses...
CMB Studio 4C Monday, February 24, 2020, 5 – 7pm Annual RTF Gender and Sexuality lecture, co-sponsored by OUTsider and the UT Department of Art […]
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UTNY Information Session
BMC 5.102 Monday, February 24, 2020, 5 – 6pm Information session for students interested in attending UTNY for fall 2020 and beyond. […]
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Photography Past and Present: A Conversation with Michael Lesy
BMC 5.208 Thursday, February 27, 2020, 2 – 3:15pm Michael Lesy is a Guggenheim Fellow and professor emeritus of literary journalism at […]
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Media Ethics Speaker Series: The Next Wave of Disinformation
CMA 5.136 Thursday, February 27, 2020, 3:30 – 4:30pm Dr. Samuel Woolley, School of Journalism (UT Austin) February 27 (Thursday) ¦ […]