The lecture can be streamed via the Penn State Library website.

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Hoaxes, lies and other misinformation have been around for centuries. Their recent ability to spread at lightning speed has media researchers studying how inaccurate information circulates and how to combat its harmful effects.

Brian Southwell is an expert in science communication whose work combines research from a number of areas, including public health, psychology, political science and environmental science. He specifically targets the public’s understanding of science, and he will discuss that and other topics at noon April 18 in Foster Auditorium in Penn State’s Paterno Library. His talk is titled “The Peril and Persistence of Misinformation.”

Despite its long history, misinformation has fostered additional issues in the digital age. Research shows that people tend to believe information — whether true or false — when they first encounter it. Unfortunately, it’s more difficult to change the minds of readers and viewers once they’ve taken in the information.

Most media don’t have a system to prevent misinformation from spreading and it takes a lot of time and resources to debunk misinformation once it has received wide exposure.

“The biggest example is climate change denial, but you have athletes and celebrities saying untrue things to a large audience and influencing health behavior, too. That’s pretty big,” said Jessica Myrick, associate professor in the Department of Film-Video and Media Studies. “We are beginning to develop strategies for combating this and that’s what Brian is going to talk about.”

Southwell, who is the director of science in the public sphere at RTI International, conducts research to better understand why and how misinformation spreads, which also can help researchers understand how to stop it from spreading. He says while programs that label “fake news” or “bad ads” are commendable, they can’t prevent false stories from appearing on the air or in a news feed — and once information is out, it’s difficult to reel it back in.

This is why Southwell is a proponent of building media literacy, which is a better understanding of the features that go into any media message. He says it’s up to science communicators to create messages for wide audiences that are understandable. It’s important for the accurate messages to receive the same level of exposure as the misinformation — a goal much easier said than done.

The lecture will feature research from the book “Misinformation and Mass Audiences.” The book builds on a special issue of the Journal of Communication that targets misinformation, and it was recently featured in American Scientist magazine. Southwell edited the book, which was published in January.

Southwell is an adjunct professor with Duke University’s Social Science Research Institute. He also is a research professor in media and journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His work has appeared in more than 100 journal articles and he hosts a weekly social science radio show/podcast called “The Measure of Everyday Life.”

Southwell’s talk is a part of the SciComm Lecture series, an initiative of Penn State’s Science Communication Program. The program is housed in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications and builds productive research collaborations between scientists in a variety of disciplines with science communications researchers.

Join a group of digital publishing and media marketing experts for a presentation and panel discussion about how leading publishers are responding to the pressures and challenges of the digital age. The session is free and open to the public.

Justin Keene, an assistant professor at Texas Tech University, presents "Dueling Motivations: Coactivation as a Pre-Cursor for Meta-Emotions, Attitude Formation, and Behavior Change."

Inaugural event, sponsored by the Center for the Study of Sports in Society at Penn State. Keynote session April 12 features John Urschel. To view the agenda, click here.

Rough-cut screening of "Cojot," a film by faculty member Boaz Dvir. The session is free and open to the public. The film tells the little-known story of a Holocaust survivor who set out to kill his father’s Nazi executioner and wound up playing a pivotal role in history’s most daring hostage-rescue operation. Actor Judd Nelson, who will serve as narrator of the film, will be in attendance for the event that will offer audience members the chance to provide feedback in person and through an anonymous online survey.

Free public session, presented by the Association of Women in Sports Media and the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism. "A Conversation with Gayle Sierens" features Gayle Sierens -- a longtime television veteran who worked at WFLA-TV in Tampa for 38 years. She started her career in sports, advancing rapidly and becoming a co-anchor of the station's 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts. In 1987, as part of her work nationally with NBC Sports, she became the first woman to handle play-by-play duties of an NFL game (Dec. 27, Seattle Seahawks vs. Kansas City Chiefs). Sierens earned Emmy Awards for both her news and sports coverage. She remained a popular co-anchor of the nightly newscasts until her retirement in 2015.

Free public lecture, the Robert M. Pockrass Memorial Lecture, presented by Robin Nabi, an associate professor in the Department of Communication at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

When the term "sustainability" refers to so many complex aspects of our social and environmental life -- including sustaining ecosystems, land and water formations, human communities, and way of life -- what do we really mean when we say, "sustainability"?

Join us for a multi-faceted panel discussion, as we consider the important questions surrounding the challenges of high levels of climate change.

Panelists:

Bryan McDonald
Sherwin Early Career Professor in the Rock Ethics Institute and associate professor of history

Courtney Morris
Assistant professor of African American studies and women's, gender and sexuality studies.

Erica Smithwick
Associate professor of geography and director of the Ecology Institute

The panel will be moderated by Peter Buckland of the Sustainability Institute.

This event is co-sponsored by Penn State's Humanities Institute, Sustainability Institute and Science Communication Program.

Professor Russell Frank examines the world of fake news and discusses how to be a smart media consumer. Free public session sponsored by Penn State Student Affairs and the Center for Spiritual and Ethical Development.

Free public lecture -- the 10th annual Bronstein Lecture in Ethics and Public Relations -- featuring Ron Culp, an adviser and instructor at DePaul University who owns a firm, and previously crafted a long career as director of media relations for Eli Lilly. He also serves as public relations chief for Pitney Bowes, Sara Lee and Sears before joining Ketchum in Chicago, where he became partner and director of the agency's corporate practices in North America. He regularly blogs about all things PR on his site (culpwrit.com).