Media Literacy, Civic Engagement, and Democracy

The Pew Research Center conducts demographic and public opinion research on a wide range of social topics. This section of their site showcases their research on issues in the media

The Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center conducts research on the intersection of media, politics, and public policy.

The Internet Observatory is a cross-disciplinary research lab that studies the abuse of information technology, with a focus on social media.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has partnered with Gallup, Inc to study public opinion on the media and technology in our democracy.

This organization of business and technological professionals works to promote ethical and socially responsible thinking in the design and implementation of new technologies.

Data and Society researches the ways that data-driven technologies and automation - including the kind found in social media and online recommendation algorithms - influence society. This section of their site features their research on media.

The Dangerous Speech Project studies forms of human expression that promote violence between groups of people, and investigates ways to mitigate the risk of violence while protecting freedom of expression.

This ongoing series hosted by the University of Illinois explores the complex interactions between people, systems, and algorithms that affect our information ecosystem. Check out the most recent lecture by Joan Donovan on media manipulation.

This video series, available through the Films on Demand database, explores the ways in which the popular social media platform has disrupted the information ecosystem.

In this excerpt from his book "Why We're Polarized", author Ezra Klein discusses the ways in which the attention economy -- a financial structure in which engagement equals profit for online media companies-- leads to increased polarization. Consider the following quote: Since the early 2000s "the internet has become much better at learning what we want and giving us more of it...[a]nd all of this has changed both how political news is produced and how it’s consumed."