In October 2024, I served as a panelist for one of Fogler’s Library Salon talks. This salon talk centered on social media, mental health, and how to navigate difficult situations on- and offline. Fellow panelists included Elizabeth Depoy (Disability Studies and Social Work). Stephen Gilson (Disability Studies), and Cassandra Rowan (Doctoral Student in Clinical Psychology…
Maine Calling: The need for nuance
In September 2024, I participated in an episode of Maine Calling on “the need for nuance.” Together with Professor Kruglanski, I discussed how communication has changed with the advent of digital media and the impact that this has had on political polarization.
UMaine CLAS: Outstanding faculty award
In April 2024, I received the Outstanding Faculty Award for Research and Creative Engagement from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Climate change and misinformation workshop
In January 2024, I held a workshop for the Maine Conservation Voters on climate change and misinformation. In this lunch and learn I discussed what misinformation is, how to check the veracity of information one can find online, and how to identify reliable sources of climate change information.
CAACE 2023: Community-building and dialogue on social media
In March 2023, I gave the keynote for the annual conference of the Connecticut Association for Adult and Continuing Education in Groton, CT. The keynote, entitled “community-building and dialogue on social media: Examining democracy in the 21st century,” addressed the threat and opportunities presented by social media platforms. More information about the keynote and the…
Maine Calling: Finding common ground
In January 2023, I was a guest on an episode of Maine Calling. In this episode, we talked about how to find common ground in polarized times. The episode can be found here.
The impact of Spoilers: L’ecornifleur
In October 2022, the French student publication L’ecornifleur, published a piece on people’s reasons for sharing spoilers, featuring various spoiler experts including Benjamin Johnson and myself.
#SpoilTheConference: A decade of spoiler research
In March 2022, I was one of the keynote speakers at #SpoilTheConference, a multi-day conference on spoilers and entertainment media organized by the University of Zurich. My keynote, “Spoilers and the narrative experience: Lessons from Ten Years of Empirical Research” focused on what we know (and don’t know) about how spoilers impact the narrative experience…
Democracy Forum: Facebook and democracy
In February 2022, Jessica Brandt (policy director at the Brookings Institution) and I spoke to WERU Community Radio about how Facebook and Democracy coexist. You can list to the conversation here.
Democracy, dialogue and civility in a social media age: Talk given at CAACE
In March 2022, I spoke to the Connecticut Association of Adult and Continuing Education about the intersection between democracy, dialogue, and civility in an era where most of our conversations take place through social media platforms.