May 14, 2020 | The COVID-19 pandemic necessitates widespread voluntary and sustained public compliance with expert-guided public health directives, like social or physical distancing. Understanding which citizens seek out and engage with expert messages regarding COVID-19 is thus of central importance. Anti-intellectualism - the generalized distrust of experts and intellectuals 鈥� is likely to be a dominant factor. This article, co-written by Professor Taylor Owen, investigates the associations between anti-intellectualism and COVID-19 risk perceptions and social distancing compliance.
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Published on: 21 May 2020
May 20, 2020 | The COVID-19 pandemic has placed an extraordinary burden on governments and citizens alike. In order to contain the spread of the pandemic and limit its effect on health care systems, citizens have been asked to forego social and economic activity to protect others at a tremendous cost to themselves.
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Published on: 21 May 2020
April 17, 2020聽| The digital age has completely disrupted global governance. Now that COVID-19 has disrupted nearly everything else, it is time to start planning for what comes next, say Max Bell School professor聽Taylor Owen and聽Rohinton P. Medhora.
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Published on: 22 Apr 2020
April 9, 2020 |聽Canada's response to the COVID-19 pandemic stands in marked contrast to that of the United States, and the crisis seems to be helping to unite Canadians like no other event in years. Read what聽Peter Loewen,聽Taylor Owen and Derek Ruths had to say.
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Published on: 15 Apr 2020
February 14, 2020 |Rapid advances in facial-recognition technology have the potential for vast social consequences. In response to the scale and speed of these developments and the clear potential for harm, a movement has emerged to ban facial recognition. In this op-ed, Max Bell School professor Taylor Owen and Nasma Ahmed call for the need to move ahead with caution and deliberation, highlighting the urgency for regulatory frameworks.
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Published on: 20 Feb 2020
February 9,聽2020|聽The federal government is worried聽about the risk of voter coercion and foreign election interference through private messaging services 鈥� a concern that could pit the right to privacy and free expression against Canada's election laws.聽
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Published on: 10 Feb 2020
January 7, 2020聽| There are serious concerns about how Facebook will police deepfake videos. Max Bell School professor Taylor Owen talks about why these sophisticated videos need editorial oversight.
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Published on: 14 Jan 2020
September 12, 2019 | Social media might not be to blame for Canadians鈥� ideological polarization, a new report on digital democracy in Canada finds. 鈥淎 lot of people don鈥檛 use social media very actively,鈥� said Eric Merkley, a researcher on the project. 鈥淧eople on Twitter are not representative of the broader population.鈥�
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Published on: 23 Sep 2019
September 2, 2019聽| An estimated 19 million Canadians have been affected by data breaches between November 2018 and June 2019, according to numbers obtained by "Attention Control with Kevin Newman," a new podcast that launched Monday. The numbers come from 446 breaches that were reported to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC). Victims of these kinds of data breaches are vulnerable to identity theft, financial crime, even violence in some cases.聽聽聽
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Published on: 23 Sep 2019
August 10, 2019| Beware of things you see online that make you emotional, one media expert warns ahead of the fall election.聽 Taylor Owen, professor at 91黑料网 and the co-creator of the Digital Democracy Project, says fake news often preys on feelings like anger and fear.
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Published on: 23 Sep 2019
August 7, 2019聽| Canadians aren鈥檛 as divided into partisan echo chambers as social media would suggest, but a heavy news diet doesn't guarantee you'll be informed, a new study has found.
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Published on: 23 Sep 2019
The Digital Ecosystem Research Challenge has awarded 18 Research Awards ranging from $3,000 to $75,000 to research teams from Canada and abroad. The Digital Ecosystem Research Challenge is a collaborative effort between Dr. Taylor Owen, Associate Professor in the Max Bell School of Public Policy, 91黑料网 and Dr. Elizabeth Dubois, Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and a Centre for Law, Technology and Society Faculty Member at the University of Ottawa.聽
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Published on: 15 Aug 2019
August 7, 2019 | A report published by the Digital Democracy Project suggests that overall misinformation levels in Canada are low. However, certain trends in media consumption put news consumers and voters more at risk to be misinformed about key political issues. To learn more about how information and disinformation flow through journalistic and social media channels in the run-up to the October federal election, read the .
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Published on: 8 Aug 2019
August 8, 2019 | A survey launched by the Digital Democracy Project聽found that most Canadians across the political spectrum got a common set of facts from an array of mainstream media outlets. The report also highlighted voters' tendencies to select and consume news from sources聽that support their political beliefs, generating so-called echo chambers.
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Published on: 8 Aug 2019
August 8, 2019 | The聽Digital Democracy Project, an initiative of聽Max Bell School of Public Policy in collaboration with the Public Policy Forum, analyzes the increasing amounts of disinformation and hate in the digital public sphere. A new study shows the links between political affiliation and misinformation. Among other findings, it was shown that voters with strong political affiliation tended to be more frequently聽misinformed about political issues than voters with a looser political affiliation.
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Published on: 8 Aug 2019
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