As part of the University of Washington Center for an Informed Public‘s ongoing Invited Speaker Series, Shannon C. McGregor, a senior researcher at the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life at the University of North Carolina and an assistant professor at UNC’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media, will join CIP researchers for an an approximately 1-hour-long discussion, “Platforms, polarization, and the identarian citizen in democracy,” on Tuesday, Feb. 1 starting at 12:30 p.m. Pacific. This research discussion is free and open to members of the public who register.
ABOUT THE EVENT | In her talk, McGregor will first argue that polarization is a symptom — not the problem. And that in fact centering concerns around polarization is problematic in a number of ways. Polarization must be less of a concern when genuinely anti-democratic threats are recognized as such. Because of that, the continuing focus of the role of platforms in exacerbating polarization is misguided. This is quite important to get right since the recent Facebook papers have maybe turned a U.S. regulatory eye toward tech platforms. Research has consistently found that technology platforms further pro-democratic movements for political equality (for example, Black Lives Matter) — struggles that necessarily lead to greater polarization because they threaten the status and power of dominant groups. Throughout, McGregor will talk a lot about political identity — what it looks like in communication, especially on platforms, and how it is constructed and used as a powerful force in politics. Though the informational elements of democracy have long animated communication research, McGregor will end the talk by discussing what an identarian citizen means for our field — and for democracy.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER | Shannon C. McGregor (PhD, University of Texas – Austin) is an assistant professor in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina, and a senior researcher with UNC’s Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life. She is an award winning and internationally recognized communication scholar whose research addresses the role of social media in political processes. In particular, she examines how social media shapes political communication, journalism, public opinion, and epistemologies of public life in democracies.