Most of us get our information fed to us through our smartphones. Constant bombardment and easy access to headlines, video clips, and sound bites help create the illusion that we are well-informed about the goings-on of our world. But...are we? On the next News Over Noise, we’ll explore what the News Finds Me mentality is, how it impacts civic engagement, and why it might be leaving us less informed than we realize.

Episode Extras

Special thanks to guest:

Homero Gil de Zúñiga, Ph.D. serves as Distinguished Research Professor at University of Salamanca, as Professor at Pennsylvania State University, and as Senior Research Fellow at Universidad Diego Portales. His work aims to shed an empirical social scientific light over how social media, algorithms, AI, and other technologies affect society. Relying on survey, experimental, and computational methods his work seeks to clarify the way we understand some of today’s most pressing challenges for democracies.

Gil de Zúñiga is recipient of the Pennsylvania State University Medal for Outstanding achievement in Social and Behavioral Sciences, Fellow of the International Communication Association (ICA), Fellow of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), recipient of the Krieghbaum Under-40 Award at the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication (AEJMC), has been identified as one of the most prolific scholars in Political Communication and Social Media 2008/2018 (Sierra & Rodríguez-Virgili, 2020), one of the most bridging and central node Communication scholars in Latin America (Segado-Boj et al., 2021), and recognized as Thomson Reuters Clarivate Journal of Citation Reports (JCR) Highly Cited Scholar.

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Episode Credits:

Matt Jordan, Host
Leah Dajches, Host
Lindsey Whissel Fenton, Producer
Mindy McMahon, Executive Producer and Audio Recordist
Holly Lowe, Project Development Manager
Clint Yoder, Audio Mix
Kristin Bittner, Instructional Designer
Katie O’Toole, Advisor
Greg Petersen, Advisor
Sydney Forde, Graduate Assistant

Leah Dajches, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral scholar at Pennsylvania State University working on the News Literacy Initiative. Her research focuses on media representation, effects, and literacy as it relates to adolescent development and marginalized group experiences. In particular, Leah is interested in understanding the role of entertainment media and fandom in various components of identity development. Her research has been published in top-tier journals such as Health Communication, Journal of Children and Media, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, and Psychology of Popular Media, among others. When she’s not in the studio or the office, Leah enjoys playing tennis, baking gluten-free/vegan pastries, and spoiling her cats and dog.

Matt Jordan is head of the Department of Film Production and Media Studies in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State University, and Director of the News Literacy Initiative. He writes and teaches classes about how today’s media systems have been altered by digital technology and what it means for democracy. He is executive producer of the documentary series HumIn Focus and author of dozens of articles and books on popular culture in America and Europe. His latest book is Danger Sound Klaxon! The Horn that Changed History.

News Over Noise is produced by the Penn State, Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications and WPSU. This program has been funded by the office of the Executive Vice President and Provost of Penn State and is part of the Penn State News Literacy Initiative.

News Over Noise is a co-production of WPSU and Penn State’s Bellisario College of Communications.

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