UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Two dozen top experts from around the world on campaign finance, media and digital technology will come together in Washington, D.C., at an invitation-only experts workshop organized by the Institute for Information Policy (IIP) at Penn State.
The workshop, titled “New Media, Old Money: Digital Technology, Social Media and the New Challenges to Campaigning and Democracy,” will be conducted Sept. 27-29 at the Swiss Embassy. It is co-sponsored by the IIP, the Department of Communication and Media Research at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and the Journal of Information Policy, which is published by IIP.
Nine papers, authored by some of the foremost researchers on campaign finance and the media, will be presented at the two-day workshop. A keynote address titled, “Money, U.S. Politics and Information Technology: From Howard Dean to Donald Trump,” will be delivered by Matthew Hindman, author of “The Myth of Digital Democracy,” and an associate professor at George Washington University.
Two Penn State faculty members — Sascha Meinrath, the Palmer Chair of Telecommunications in the College of Communications, and Carleen Maitland, an associate professor in the College of Information Sciences and Technology — will serve as respondents at the workshop.
Meinrath, who has been named to the Time Magazine “Tech 40” as one of the most influential figures in technology, is also the founding director of X-Lab, an innovative think tank based in Washington, D.C., that focuses on the intersection of vanguard technologies and public policy.
Maitland serves as a co-director of the IIP, with Krisna Jayakar, an associate professor of telecommunications, and Amit Schejter, a visiting professor of telecommunications. Since 2010, the IIP, housed in the College of Communications, has organized bi-annual experts workshops on various aspects of media and telecommunications policy. This is the 11th workshop in the series.