Session 6 will take place on Wednesday, 4:00 PM CEST (3:00 PM London time), May 19, on Zoom Webinar
About The Series
The CIVICA Data Science Seminar series is a unique multi-disciplinary series focused on applications and methodologies of data science for the social, political, and economic world.
Session 6 Details
In an era of increasing social isolation, platforms like Facebook and Twitter are among the most important tools we have to understand each other. We use social media as a mirror to decipher our place in society but, it functions more like a prism that distorts our identities, empowers status-seeking extremists, and renders moderates all but invisible.
Join us in session 6 of the CIVICA Data Science Seminar Series as Prof. Chris Bail, Director of the Polarization Lab at Duke University, guides us inside the minds of these online extremists through vivid narratives that trace their lives on the platforms and off to understand how they are able to dominate public discourse. He also offers innovative solutions to counter this political tribalism, and a glimpse of a possible redesign of the social media environment that favors empathy, understanding and peaceful engagement.
His research and data-driven recommendations for strengthening our social media connections is also detailed in his latest book - Breaking the Social Media Prism, giving us a path forward on how to combat online polarization without deleting our accounts or compromising our digital lives.
Seminar Speaker
Prof. Chris Bail
Prof. Chris Bail is Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at Duke University, where he directs the Polarization Lab. A Guggenheim and Carnegie Fellow, he studies political extremism on social media using tools from the emerging field of computational social science. He is the author of Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make our Platforms Less Polarizing. See more
Agenda
Welcome Introduction Prof. Nicolo' Cavalli, Bocconi University
Setting the scene: Brief intro to the speaker and his research
Seminar Session Prof. Chris Bail, Duke University
"Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make our Platforms Less Polarizing"
Research Discussion. Lead Institution
Q&A / Discussion on the research
Announcement
Upcoming seminar in the series and other announcements