Liz Schwartz

map courtesy of Open Street Maps

Understanding Douma

The New Media Propaganda Wars and the Value of a Second Draft Read the paper A new paper by James Harkin, Joan Shorenstein Fellow (Fall, 2018) and Director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism in London explores current debates about online disinformation through the prism of Syria reporting and a single incident – a heavily […]

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Big Tech and Democracy: The Critical Role of Congress

In March 2019, two projects at Harvard Kennedy School—the Technology and Public Purpose (TAPP) Project at the Belfer Center and the Platform Accountability Project at the Shorenstein Center—hosted a workshop for Congressional staff to identify and discuss policy approaches to the dilemmas of big tech platforms.

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Assessing Campaign Quality: Was the 2016 Presidential Campaign a Travesty?

By Roderick P. Hart, Fall 2018 Shorenstein Fellow and Shivers Chair in Communication and Professor of Government, University of Texas at Austin This essay is forthcoming as part of a special symposium on Campaign 2016 to be published in the Fall edition of Presidential Studies Quarterly. Download a PDF copy of this paper here. Introduction It

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Platform Accountability: An Interim Measure

Download the PDF of this paper here. Introduction The major digital platform companies present a large, complicated array of benefits and problems for the country and the world. The companies increasingly have the attention of both average citizens and senior-most public officials as befit entities that have achieved great—perhaps even paramount—influence in political, social, and

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Garrett Graff

Garrett Graff: Decoding the Mueller Investigation

Garrett Graff is a journalist, historian, director of the Aspen Institute’s Cybersecurity and Technology Program, and author of The Threat Matrix, the definitive account of Robert Mueller’s time as head of the FBI. In this episode of the Shorenstein Center’s podcast, he talks about the Mueller Investigation: what we know, what we still don’t know,

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Can Cities Save the Census? A Local Framework for Our Nation’s First Digital Count

With trust in federal government and institutions at historic lows, local governments, including cities and counties, must play a critical role in the 2020 Census. If we don’t get the census right, there is so much we are at risk of getting wrong – the implications of which will last for years.

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Estimating the Effect of Asking About Citizenship on the U.S. Census

The 2020 U.S. Census will, for the first time since 1950, ask about residents’ citizenship status. The effect of doing so on census completion across different racial/ethnic groups is, however, unknown. Leveraging a survey experiment, we are the first to assess the causal effect of this question change.

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The Goldsmith Awards: Finalists Panel

On March 12th, just before the 2019 Goldsmith Awards ceremony, representatives of the 7 reporting teams who were finalists for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting sat down with Nicco Mele, Shorenstein Center Director, for a candid conversation about their prize-nominated reporting, the struggles of being an investigative journalist reporting on some of the most

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