Skip to main content

In accordance with UC Berkeley campus policy, the Social Science Matrix offices are closed, and all our events will be presented online until further notice. Visit https://matrix.berkeley.edu/events for more information.

Berkeley Social Science

  • Research Streams
  • Events
  • Initiatives
  • Services & Support
  • Affiliated Centers
  • About
Berkeley

Research Streams

  • Matrix
  • Cities
  • Cognition
  • Complexity
  • COVID-19
  • Environment
  • Governance
  • Identities
  • Mortality
  • Risk
  • Stratification
  • Technology
See all Topics

Events

  • Past Events
  • Authors Meet Critics
  • Matrix on Point

Services & Support

  • Project & Grant Services
  • Matrix Funding

Initiatives

  • Matrix Research Teams
  • COVID-19: UC Berkeley Social Sciences Portal
  • Reimagining Democracy Town Hall Series

About

  • Contact
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Jobs
  • Team
  • Affiliated Centers
  • Matrix Space Usage Policy
  • Home
  • Research Streams
  • Technology
  • Research Streams
Technology

Video: "The True Costs of Misinformation: Producing Moral and Technical Order in a Time of Pandemonium"

Associated Channels

  • Technology
  • Governance
  • Matrix
February 28, 2021 by Chuck Kapelke
 

A lecture by Joan Donovan, Research Director for the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University.

Recorded on February 19, 2021, this video features a lecture by Joan Donovan, Research Director for the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. This event was presented as part of the "Solidarity and Strife: Democracies in a Time of Pandemic" initiative, funded by the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) and co-sponsored by the University of California, Berkeley's Social Science Matrix and the D-Lab.

Dr. Donovan leads the field in examining internet and technology studies, online extremism, media manipulation, and disinformation campaigns. Dr. Donovan 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. TaSC conducts research, develops methods, and facilitates workshops for journalists, policy makers, technologists, and civil society organizations on how to detect, document, and debunk media manipulation campaigns. Dr. Donovan's research and teaching interests are focused on media manipulation, effects of disinformation campaigns, and adversarial media movements.

“I am a sociologist and an ethnographer by trade," she said. "One of the things we really try to help people understand is that you don't need an advanced degree in data science (though sometimes it's nice) to do this kind of work. What you really need is a mind for sniffing out the BS. You really need to try to figure out what kind of power is at play, who is being manipulated, and what kind of content is being used? And then of course, as the sociologist, the question for me is always, who is being harmed? What kind of social institution is in the crosshairs of misinformation at scale?"

In her talk, Donovan draws important distinctions between disinformation and misinformation, and she uses case studies to illuminate how misinformation spreads. "When I'm thinking about this pandemic moment, I'm really thinking about, what is people's access to timely local, relevant, and accurate information?" she explained. "And how is the presence of disinformation disrupting or displacing our human right to truth? But I also know that we're living in a bit of pandemonium.... We're looking at an evil spirit, a divine power, a kind of an intentional moment in which chaos reigns. And so with the pandemic, of course, I feel like we're living through pandemonium."

Watch the lecture above or on YouTube.

Department

  • Sociology

Article Type

  • Matrix Event
  Comments

Add a Comment

Filtered HTML

Plain text

Related Articles

  • April 26, 2021 by Chuck Kapelke

    Truth & Denial, Searching for Information in the Digital Era

    A Matrix on Point panel discussion focused on how (and why) misinformation spreads on the internet, including the role played by search engines.

  • March 20, 2021 by Chuck Kapelke

    Video: Evgeny Morozov, "Beyond Competition: Alternative Discovery Procedures & The Postcapitalist Public Sphere"

    Recorded on March 19, 2021, this lecture features Evgeny Morozov, author of The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom and To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism.

  • February 4, 2021 by Chuck Kapelke

    Video: Measuring Belief in Fake News Online

    A lecture on why people believe fake news — and what can be done about it — by Joshua A. Tucker, Professor of Politics at New York University

Berkeley

Connect With Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Jobs
  • Terms of Use
Donate
Copyright ©2007 - 2025 | The Regents of the University of California
Berkeley