Backlash; Attacks on Disinformation Researchers Now and in the Past

Join us for a half-day meeting at Columbia University about the global attacks on mis/disinformation researchers and how this compares to the 1930s. From 3-6pm in room 1512 of IAB, 420 West 118 th st.

As part of its general repression of academic freedom, the Trump administration, and some of its supporters, have harassed mis/disinformation researchers online and offline. House subpoenas, demands for records, online trolling and public attacks on tech regulation have created a chilling environment for scholars who study online mis/disinformation, making it harder to raise funding and causing scholars to reconsider whether their research is too risky to pursue.

In the 1930s, the Institute for Propaganda Analysis (IPA) at Columbia University studied what was then known as “propaganda” and designed some of the first media literacy efforts in the US, publishing books and magazines explaining how propaganda worked and designing materials to be used in classrooms. The IPA was attacked by the right-wing press, and as the US prepared to enter World War II, the movement against propaganda fell out of fashion. Clyde Miller was dismissed by Columbia and the IPA closed its doors in 1942.

Join us as we consider the backlash against propaganda researchers in the 1930s and the chilling attacks on academic freedom that we live under in these current times.

Speakers include: Sanjay Reddy (The New School), Thomas Wheatland (Assumption University), David Greenberg (Rutgers), Natalia Mehlman Petrzela (The New School), Julia Sonnevend (The New School), Phil Napoli (Duke University), Victor Pickard (Annenberg School of Communication), Andie Tucher (Columbia University), and Susan Neiman author of Call it Evil: Understanding the Trump Era (W.W. Norton).

Recent articles mentioning IPA’s methods https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-iran-war-propaganda_l_6a762cdee4b019e3187d527d
Renee di Resta Substack : https://open.substack.com/pub/agentsofinfluence/p/trump-is-going-to-lie-to-you-tonight

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