Fake News, Real Talk
2019, Media + Information, Summit Confronting the Disinformation Age
Knowledge is power. In a digital age of fake news, alternative facts, media echo chambers, confirmation bias, and algorithm-fuelled virality, how can we as students navigate our way around our distorted media landscape? What does it mean now to be informed?
Fake News, Real Talk is an interactive, student-led exhibit showcasing how disinformation impacts us when it comes to everything from politics to pop culture, even down to our personal lives. Our event is driven with the purpose of illustrating how misinformation impacts the lens through which we perceive, experience, and act upon our world.
So, take a study break and come kick back with us! Gather your friends for a night of great food, even better company, and get ready to challenge your understanding of truth. Hang out with fellow students and join us for an amazing and informative night at the Misinformation Gallery. Drop by anytime between 7:00-9:00pm. Don’t miss out!
Fake News, Real talk is an event organized by the SFU Public Square Peer Engagement Ambassadors. This event is organized by students for students and serves as a lead up event for the 2019 Community Summit, Confronting the Disinformation Age.
7:00 PM (PT)
The HiVE
210-128 W Hastings Street, Vancouver
We respectfully acknowledge that this event takes place on the Unceded, Traditional, Ancestral Territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ, and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm First Nations.
About Confronting the Disinformation Age
SFU Public Square’s 2019 Community Summit considered how the proliferation of disinformation is impacting society and challenging our capacity to make informed decisions about our economic, social, and political lives. Together, we co-created strategies to ensure stronger and healthier information ecosystems and stimulate more connected and resilient communities.
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The Disinformation Age
Information is fundamental to our existence. Without it, we cannot understand or effectively respond to the events that shape our world. Throughout history, campaigns to deliberately spread false information to influence public opinion or obscure the truth have been launched by individuals, organizations, and governments. But today, we’re living in a new age of information facilitated primarily by digital technology. These advancements offer us extraordinary access to facts and data but also allow for harmful, inaccurate, and manipulated information to be created and disseminated at an unprecedented speed, scope, and scale. Falsehoods are pitted against facts in competition for our attention and technology is used to exploit our cognitive functioning without repercussion. In what is being called the “post-truth” era, the distortion of our information landscape is eroding our trust in institutions, political systems, the media, and each other.
Summit trailer
Confronting the Disinformation Age | Resources
Books, articles, videos and other resources on disinformation.
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Fabricating Meaning
Dr. Eldon Yellowhorn and Dr. J. Steven Dodge will present their approaches to how language is used in science, as objective or embedded with cultural histories and subjectivities.
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When Facts Fail | City Conversations
Over the last decade, narratives surrounding climate, housing, drug, and transportation policies have taken centre stage in our news cycle and the collective conscious of Greater Vancouverites.
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Philosophy of Fake News
What is it exactly? How bad is it? And what can we do about it? Three philosophers grapple with how disinformation works and poses a serious threat to our democratic institutions.
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Youth Take Action
Digital citizenship is a new and evolving concept which grapples with the complex reality of new digital technologies that impact all aspects of our lives today.
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Confronting the Disinformation Age | Keynote
Today, in what many are calling the “post-truth” era, we’re witnessing an epidemic of disinformation. How did we get here?
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Face to Face(book) with Christopher Wylie
The New Yorker calls him “a pink-haired, nose-ringed oracle sent from the future". Best known for his role in setting up – and then taking down – the cyberwarfare firm Cambridge Analytica, Chris has been listed in TIME100 Most Influential People in the World, Forbes’ 30 Under 30, Politico’s 50 Most Influential People in Politics and Business Insider’s 100 Coolest People in Tech.
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Media, Misinformation, and What Can Be Done About It
Given the rise of misinformation that we’ve seen around the world and in Canada, what practical steps can be taken to improve the coverage leading up to and during the 2019 federal election?
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Working Towards an Inclusive Digital Society
This interactive forum will address current practices, challenges and possibilities for justice-based approach to digital literacy education in communities that experience various forms of marginality across income, ability, health, gender and race.
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Is Social Media Destroying Democracy?
Is social media destroying our democracy? If it is, what role can public policy play in regulation, will regulation even work, and can we save our democracy before it’s too late?
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Innovations in Research: Confronting the Disinformation Age
Hosted by Joy Johnson, Vice-President, Research and International at SFU, this event features rapid-fire presentations, in-depth discussions, and interactive demonstrations by faculty, staff, students and alumni from across SFU’s faculties, departments, programs and campuses.
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Competing Visions of Climate Populism
Populism has become an increasingly prominent force in Canadian political life, with significant implications for how the public engages with the intersecting politics of climate change and energy. In a panel discussion featuring Shane Gunster, Bob Neubauer, and Paul Saurette, these three authors of a forthcoming book will discuss how competing visions of extractive and ecological populism are shaping political debate in Canada.
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A Special Philosopher's Cafe: Confronting the Disinformation Age
Lies and mistruths have always been used to sway people’s beliefs, and people have always created false personas. Plato wrestled with how to tell appearance from reality, and suggested that those in “the cave” might choose shadows and reflections over being truly enlightened. Are current times different and, if so, why and how? For example, does the Internet make it easier to create and disseminate persuasive lies? Are snark and falsehood now rewarded with more attention and money than ever before? Or is there nothing new under the sun?
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Fake News, Real Talk
In a digital age of fake news, alternative facts, media echo chambers, confirmation bias, and algorithm-fuelled virality, how can we as students navigate our way around our distorted media landscape?
Read More →