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Rumors of Theft: Navigating election integrity discourse online
Election integrity is the core concern of any democracy. Citizen oversight of elections is paramount, and in healthy democracies voters share concerns about election processes, calling attention to malfeasance, raising questions about suspicious events, and calling power to account. At the same time, propagandists can flood the discourse environment with cheap, misrepresented, or fabricated evidence, making it difficult to distinguish real threats from counterfeit ones.
In such an “information fog” how do citizens make sense of their information environment? How can ordinary people distinguish between phantom concerns and issues requiring their attention? In this session, information literacy expert Mike Caulfield will detail the structure of election integrity discourse online and skills the public needs to navigate it effectively.
Mike Caulfield is an internationally recognized expert in information literacy, and former researcher of election rumor. He has worked for the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public as a research scientist, and was creator and leader of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities Digital Polarization Project. His book with Sam Wineburg, Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions about What to Believe Online was published by University of Chicago Press in November 2023. He is currently researching how web users use search to contextualize events and media across politics, entertainment and other domains. His work can be found at mikecaulfield.substack.com.
The talk, which is free and open to the public, will take place Oct. 15 at 7 p.m. in-person at James Branch Cabell Lecture Hall and remotely via Zoom. Please register to attend. Parking is available for a fee either on the surrounding streets or in the West Main St. Parking Deck.
For questions or accommodations, please contact the VCU Libraries Events Office at rbpander@vcu.edu or (804) 828-0593.
Sponsored by Work & Think, LLC