7:00 – 6:00 ASRC MKT

• It’s fall and dark in the morning
• Change the “Designed systems” diagram to be more of a bathtub curve, reflecting that there is very little activity in the complex regime – done
• Working on the “Second middle part” (discussion? results?).
• This from the New Yorker book review of Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics
  • The Clinton orgy-island story met a very different fate in the right-wing media, which pushed versions of it over the course of the campaign. (Fox News initially ran several segments that raised the topic of the “Lolita Express.”) The dynamic on the right, the authors found, “rewards the most popular and widely viewed channels at the very top of the media ecosystem for delivering stories, whether true or false, that protect the team, reinforce its beliefs, attack opponents, and refute any claims that might threaten ‘our’ team from outsiders.” Referring to the orgy-island story, the authors note that “not one right-wing outlet came out to criticize and expose this blatant lie for what it was. In the grip of the propaganda feedback loop, the right-wing media ecosystem had no mechanism for self-correction, and instead exhibited dynamics of self-reinforcement, confirmation, and repetition so that readers, viewers and listeners encountered multiple versions of the same story, over months, to the point that both recall and credibility were enhanced.”
• Transdisciplinary PhD Journeys: Reflecting on the challenge of the ‘transdisciplinary triple jump’
  • Responding to calls to ‘be transdisciplinary⁴’, we have committed to applying and critically reflecting on the principles of TD in our PhD research. However, in current institutional structures and cultures of academia, this adds an additional challenge to the existing demands of PhD research^5,6. Not only are we expected to navigate the terrain of interdisciplinarity described as an ‘undisciplinary journey’⁶ which requires ‘epistemological agility’, but we are also confronted with the task of engaging meaningfully with societal actors beyond our academic comfort zones. All of this means we are constantly trying to ‘be everything to everyone’ and risk burning ourselves out in the process.

Fika – Sy’s talk. Better this time

Meeting with Wayne

• Went over SASO, which we all agree went very well
• Talked about ASRC funding conferences. Will try to see if we can do iConf if accepted
• Went over the rough form of the iConf paper. First review pass by COB tomorrow
• And hung the SASO poster 🙂