Desmond Patton’s review paper shows that LLMs struggle to interpret African-American Language (AAL). The work shows that native AAL speakers need to work harder to be understood by LLMs, which can make some users feel that their culture and language are not valued.
infodem.upenn.edu/research/#pa...
Shiri Melumad's research shows that the ways that users learn from LLMs (via summaries) may lead people to have a shallow understanding of a topic which in turn, and may make LLM-assisted analyses less informative to others.
infodem.upenn.edu/research/#pa...
Erik Santoro and colleagues find that for conversations about policy disagreements, listening does not reliably enhance persuasive appeals.
infodem.upenn.edu/research/#pa...
Here are some examples!
Emily Falk and colleagues show that interventions successful at improving voting intentions do not end up improving actual voter registration or voter turnout.
infodem.upenn.edu/research/#pa...
We aim to better inform media organizations, the private sector, civil society, policymakers, and the public, as they try to navigate the ever more complex information ecosystem. For each paper, we provide an overview of the research, its key findings and a note on why it matters beyond academia!
Congratulations to all 12 of our grant recipients. 🎉 We can't wait to see what their research uncovers.
These projects tackle three critical dimensions:
→ How media ecosystems shape public understanding
→ AI's role as an information intermediary
→ Communication strategies that build common ground
We funded 12 projects at a moment of profound technological change and extraordinary democratic crisis — all focused on strengthening our collective understanding of the information ecosystem.
🧵 We're excited to share that we’re using slightly outdated content to backfill our BlueSky profile!
For instance, like, uh, two months ago, we awarded our inaugural Information and Democracy Research Grant Program! (1/4)
Research can have a greater impact if it effectively informs advocates and policymakers. We convene events, engage policymakers, and work with civil society so evidence — not intuition — shapes media policy.
📬 Subscribe to our newsletter for center updates + the latest research:
And we don't work in silos. Our work brings together 24 affiliated faculty and dozens of other scholars across communication, engineering, law, political science, business, and social policy. You can read more on our faculty page:
infodem.upenn.edu/affiliated-f...
We're building shared data infrastructure (including PennMAP) and investing in computational social science — ML, network analysis, NLP — to study information systems at scale.
We take a broad view of the media ecosystem. That means social platforms, yes — but also TV, podcasts, radio, and the wider internet. We don't assume any single channel dominates how people actually get information. Check out our research compendium for a snapshot of our work in this space!
We study the information ecosystem — the platforms, algorithms, and incentives that determine which ideas spread and which don't. Our goal: better science, better policy, stronger democracy.
Hello from the Penn Center on Media, Technology, and Democracy! 👋 We're new(ish), and we just joined Bluesky — because, well, you know how the other platforms are going. Here's what we're about 🧵 (1/6)
