What we believe and who we know: Misinformation in the Information Age.
Tuesday, Oct 29, 2024
1:30pm - 3:30pm
Lecture by:
Dr. Kate Mercer
Navigating the often-overwhelming amount of information we now encounter on a daily basis has never been more difficult. The rise of AI, social media, and vast amounts of information has resulted in a culture where information is spreading faster than many of us can keep up with. From fake news, conspiracy theories, memes, and innocently shared headlines, misinformation has become the defining problem of our era. Threatening democracy, our ability to trust each other, and even our health, how we share information has truly become a crisis. What is misinformation – how has it changed, and what is the science telling us, and what can we do when traditional fact checking and debunking no longer work?
This presentation will cover what misinformation is, the history of misinformation, contextualize it within the information landscape, and briefly discuss how AI has shifted things further. I will also briefly examine what we can do to begin to work with the system that exists, how to navigate information overload, and discuss how communication has changed.
About Dr. Kate Mercer
Dr. Kate Mercer
Dr. Kate Mercer graduated with a Master of Information from the University of Toronto, and a PhD in Pharmacy from the University of Waterloo, focusing on communicating health information. Kate is the Librarian for Systems Design Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Waterloo where her job includes collaborating with faculty, staff, and students to effectively provide instruction and support and conduct research. At the University of Waterloo, Kate works on strategies related to information and misinformation, understanding the research landscape, and building innovative partnerships that span disciplines.
Kate is passionate about understanding how health information and technology interact, how people are accessing, understanding, and disseminating information, and how to better support students through their undergraduate degrees and beyond. Kate also researches in how engineering and science students navigate information seeking, and how to understand how framing critical appraisal can facilitate both learning and professional practice in the real world. Kate publishes on a range of topics including information literacy, misinformation, scientific communication, artificial intelligence, and empathy in engineering teaching and learning.