Sharon Strover: Online Disinformation

Dr. Sharon Strover discusses how disinformation has mushroomed in the U.S. around a variety of subjects and from a variety of sources. Her research group at TIPI has looked over some of the Russian-placed social media disinformation and investigated the possible tactics behind it. They have analyzed why some people in the U.S. responded to propaganda messages, and how the press has dealt with those same messages. She shares those results and more in this talk at EFF-Austin’s monthly meeting on December 8, 2020. Sharon is the Philip G. Warner Regents Professor in Communication and former Chair of the Radio-TV-Film Department at the University of Texas, where she teaches communications and technology courses and directs the Technology and Information Policy Institute. Some of her current research projects examine local and statewide networks and broadband services; the relationship between economic outcomes and the Internet; misinformation; the digital divide; and rural broadband deployment. Dr. Strover has worked with several international, national and regional government agencies on telecommunications policy matters, including the U.S. Department of Agricultureís Rural Utilities Service, U.S. Federal Communication Commission, the government of Portugal, the Center for Rural Strategies, the European Union, The Appalachian Regional Commission, the Office of Technology Assessment, the Rural Policy Institute, the Ford Foundation, the European Union, the Texas Public Utility Commission, the Department of Information Resources and Department of Health and Human Services, and the Aspen Institute. She has published several articles and chapters on subjects related to technology and telecommunications, and has been the editor or co-editor of three books, edited journal issues for The Information Society and Government Information Quarterly, and serves on the editorial boards of several major publications. She is currently working on a book addressing economic development and the spatial distribution of telecommunications resources.