Supermodel Petra Nemcova was vacationing in Thailand a decade ago, on Dec. 26, when it was hit by a devastating tsunami that destroyed communities in 14 countries and took the lives 230,000 people. Amy Jordan, APPC's associate director, writes in The Hill about Nemcova's work to turn tragedy and social media into social action.
Year after year, the suicide rate is at its lowest in the United States during the holiday season, but nearly three-quarters of U.S. newspaper stories linking suicide and the holidays during the 2013-2014 season incorrectly said the opposite.
PHILADELPHIA — Just in time for Bill of Rights Day (Dec. 15), Annenberg Classroom has released the multiplayer version of a game for middle and high-school students that challenges them to apply their knowledge of the Constitution to everyday legal scenarios. Annenberg Classroom’s “That’s Your Right” game lets students compete against each other online in
As the holidays approach, with their inevitable dinner-table debates among friends and extended family, FlackCheck.org has released a short video that can help people sort fact from fiction when considering email and viral social-media claims. In “Spotting Bogus Claims,” FlackCheck.org, the political literacy site, runs down seven key characteristics of bogus email claims. The three-minute
Parents can become desensitized to violence and sex in movies after watching only a few scenes with disturbing content, according to a new study published in Pediatrics that was conducted by researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center. The study comes as scenes of sex and violence become more prevalent in movies aimed at youth. A 2013 study in Pediatrics from APPC researchers showed that the amount of violence in PG-13 movies tripled in the most popular movies since 1985.
To mark its 20th anniversary, the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania is opening a new area of study, the Science of Science Communication, to investigate how scientific evidence can be more effectively conveyed to the public. APPC also announced that FactCheck.org, which has focused on political speech, has received funding from the Stanton Foundation to expand its mission to include monitoring the use and misuse of scientific evidence.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. Vote Foundation (US Vote) and the nonpartisan site FactCheck.org have developed an alliance through which FactCheck.org will provide relevant, timely and accurate political information to voters who create an individual “My Voter Account” on the US Vote website. The project, supported by the Democracy Fund, was created to make it easy for voters to find unbiased, fact-checked news from within their private Voter Accounts.
On Sept. 17, 2014, 47 students and their teachers gathered in Washington, D.C. as part of a coast-to-coast celebration to commemorate Constitution Day.
A group of five Chinese journalists visited the Annenberg Public Policy Center on Sept. 23, meeting with APPC director Kathleen Hall Jamieson. The journalists took part in the 2014 China-United States Journalists Exchange, on a study tour in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. Dr. Jamieson, co-founder of the policy center's FactCheck.org project, said the group talked about practices in Chinese vs. U.S. journalism...
Americans show great uncertainty when it comes to answering basic questions about how their government works, a survey conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center has found. The survey was released for Constitution Day, Sept. 17, in conjunction with the launch of the Civics Renewal Network.