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X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://comm.ucla.edu
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for UCLA Communication
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260416T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260416T121500
DTSTAMP:20260424T085148
CREATED:20260210T033131Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260210T033343Z
UID:10366-1776337200-1776341700@comm.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Natalie Kahn Speaker Series: Sol Hart - University of Michigan
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://comm.ucla.edu/event/natalie-kahn-speaker-series-sol-hart-university-of-michigan/
LOCATION:Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
CATEGORIES:Department Speaker Series
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260409T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260409T121500
DTSTAMP:20260424T085148
CREATED:20260210T033302Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260210T033302Z
UID:10369-1775732400-1775736900@comm.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Department Speaker Series: Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook - UC Merced
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://comm.ucla.edu/event/department-speaker-series-jennifer-hahn-holbrook-uc-merced/
LOCATION:Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
CATEGORIES:Department Speaker Series
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260226T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260226T121500
DTSTAMP:20260424T085148
CREATED:20260210T032415Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260210T234131Z
UID:10358-1772103600-1772108100@comm.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Department Speaker Series: Safiya Noble - UCLA
DESCRIPTION:Data In Society\, Not Data As Society \nThe landscape of information is rapidly shifting as new imperatives and demands push to the fore increasing investment in digital technologies. Yet\, critical information scholars continue to demonstrate how digital technology and its narratives are shaped by and infused with values that are not impartial. Technologies consist of a set of social practices\, situated within the dynamics of race\, gender\, class\, and politics\, and in the service of something — a position\, a profit motive\, a means to an end. In this talk\, Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble will discuss her book\, Algorithms of Oppression\, and delve into issues ranging from marginalization and misrepresentation in commercial information platforms like Google search\, to the profound power struggles that violate civil\, human\, and collective rights through AI and machine learning projects. \n___________ \nSafiya U. Noble is the David O. Sears Presidential Endowed Chair of Social Sciences and Professor of Gender Studies\, African American Studies\, and Information Studies at UCLA.
URL:https://comm.ucla.edu/event/safiya-noble-ucla/
LOCATION:Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
CATEGORIES:Department Speaker Series
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251120T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251120T123000
DTSTAMP:20260424T085148
CREATED:20250922T172502Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260210T033558Z
UID:10037-1763636400-1763641800@comm.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Department Speaker Series: Idan Blank - UCLA
DESCRIPTION:Understanding ‘Understanding’ in Large Language Models \nIdan Blank\, Assistant Professor\, Department of Psychology and Linguistics\, UCLA \nPart of the Department of Communication Speaker Series.
URL:https://comm.ucla.edu/event/10037/
LOCATION:Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
CATEGORIES:Communication and Politics Group,Department Speaker Series
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251113T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251113T123000
DTSTAMP:20260424T085148
CREATED:20250922T172153Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260210T033729Z
UID:10032-1763031600-1763037000@comm.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Department Speaker Series: Eunji Kim - Columbia University
DESCRIPTION:How social media creators shape mass politics: A field experiment during the 2024 US elections \nEunji Kim\, Assistant Professor of Political Science\, Columbia University \nPart of the Department of Communication Speaker Series\, and co-organized with the Communication and Politics Group.
URL:https://comm.ucla.edu/event/department-speakers-series-eunji-kim/
LOCATION:Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
CATEGORIES:Communication and Politics Group,Department Speaker Series
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251030T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251030T123000
DTSTAMP:20260424T085148
CREATED:20250922T172102Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250922T172636Z
UID:10029-1761822000-1761827400@comm.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Department Speaker Series: Kaiping Chen
DESCRIPTION:From Digital Portrayals to AI Refusals: Gendered Patterns in Science and Technology Communication \nKaiping Chen\, Associate Professor in Computational Communication\, Department of Life Sciences Communication\, University of Wisconsin-Madison \nPart of the Department of Communication Speakers Series\, and co-organized with the Communication and Politics Group.
URL:https://comm.ucla.edu/event/department-speaker-series-kaiping-chen/
LOCATION:Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
CATEGORIES:Communication and Politics Group,Department Speaker Series
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240530T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240530T121500
DTSTAMP:20260424T085148
CREATED:20230916T191714Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240522T024623Z
UID:6807-1717066800-1717071300@comm.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Natalie Kahn Talk\, Department Speaker Series: Muniba Saleem (UCSB\, Communication)
DESCRIPTION:Title: Media Representations and Their Broader Implications for Intergroup Relations \n  \nAbstract: This talk highlights the role of media as an ecosystem in cultivating societal divisions within multicultural contexts. Utilizing correlational\, experimental\, and longitudinal research methodologies\, I provide a comprehensive analysis of the nuanced effects on both racial majority and minority audiences. The findings reveal three broader implications of media depictions of racial minorities. First\, exposure to negative media portrayals of racial minorities adversely affects the attitudes and behaviors of racial majority members towards these groups. Second\, such negative depictions harm racial minorities’ self-esteem and group esteem\, while reinforcing their perceived disadvantaged status in mainstream society relative to other groups. Finally\, mainstream media representations undermine the sense of belonging\, inclusion\, and integration of racial minority members within mainstream society\, culture\, and politics.
URL:https://comm.ucla.edu/event/department-speaker-series-muniba-saleem-ucsb-communication/
LOCATION:Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
CATEGORIES:Department Speaker Series
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240516T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240516T121500
DTSTAMP:20260424T085148
CREATED:20230912T040720Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240513T172758Z
UID:6791-1715857200-1715861700@comm.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Department Speaker Series: Megan Burkhardt-Reed (UCLA\, Communication)
DESCRIPTION:Title: The emergence of communication in infancy: Development and evolution \n  \nAbstract: \nDo gestures truly precede vocalization in modern human development and in the evolutionary origin of language? Or is vocalization more foundational for communication? Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in the evolutionary origins of language. Speculations on the evolution of language have evoked comparisons across human and non-human primate communication. However\, many argue that the origins of language relate closely to the origins of modern human infantbehavior. To the extent that the issue of language origins has been raised\, most recent published opinions exploring evolutionary possibilities have leaned toward a “gesture-first”hypothesis. But much empirical information does not accord with the gestural claims. \n\nIn this talk\, I will present findings from two of my longitudinal studies that systematically compare rates of gestural and vocal communication across the first two years of life. The findings from this research reveal that the bulk of activity in the first and second year of life are in the vocal domain rather than gestural\, suggesting a more foundational role of voice. I will propose a framework to allow comparable counting of communicative and/or potentially communicative events of both infant gesture and vocalization. To date\, clear definitions and criteria for classification have not been a major focus of empirical investigation on gesture and vocalization as language foundations in prior research. I will also outline my current study on understanding the ways older infants continue to babble and speak and the ways caregivers respond to these communications and then present some of the methodology for conducting this work. I will conclude with thoughts on the broader implications of my findings and future directions of my program of research.
URL:https://comm.ucla.edu/event/department-speaker-series-megan-burkhardt-reed-ucla/
LOCATION:Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
CATEGORIES:Department Speaker Series
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240425T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240425T121500
DTSTAMP:20260424T085148
CREATED:20230918T031257Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240416T030515Z
UID:6815-1714042800-1714047300@comm.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Department Speaker Series: Dana Mastro (UCSB\, Communication)
DESCRIPTION:Title: Threat in the form of News: Examining the ways that news coverage of immigration constrains systemically marginalized groups\n \nAbstract: Although U.S. media portrayals of racial\, ethnic\, and other historically excluded identities vary based on the group\, platform\, and genre\, generally speaking these groups have tended to be both underrepresented and\, at times\, unfavorably depicted across the media landscape. The current talk addresses this issue with a particular focus on coverage of immigration in the news. Specifically\, the manner in which U.S. news characterizes immigration and immigrants will be addressed followed by a discussion of empirical research investigating how variations in the themes in this content affect opinions about\, feelings toward\, and behaviors regarding immigration and immigrants among both ‘dominant’ and traditionally marginalized groups.
URL:https://comm.ucla.edu/event/department-speaker-series-dana-mastro-ucsb-communication/
LOCATION:Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
CATEGORIES:Department Speaker Series
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240411T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240411T121500
DTSTAMP:20260424T085148
CREATED:20240123T010419Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240404T025040Z
UID:7109-1712833200-1712837700@comm.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Department Speaker Series: Emilio Ferrara (USC\, Communication & Computer Science)
DESCRIPTION:TITLE: AI & Social Manipulation \n  \nABSTRACT: In this talk\, I will overview my decadelong journey into understanding the implications of online platform manipulation. I’ll start from detecting malicious bots and other forms of manipulation including troll accounts\, coordinated campaigns\, and disinformation operations. The impact of my work will be corroborated with examples of findings enabled by our technology\, e.g.\, our unveiling of the “Russian bots” operation prior to the 2016 U.S. Presidential election\, which informed official Senate investigations and new regulations. I will then illustrate similar issues with the 2020 U.S. Election\, as well as COVID-related conspiracies and public health misinformation. I’ll conclude by discussing the ML tools we developed to model online mis/disinformation\, reveal the malicious adversaries behind the curtains\, and characterize their activity\, behavior\, and strategies\, suggesting how they are changing the way researchers and study online platforms in the era of automation and artificial intelligence.
URL:https://comm.ucla.edu/event/department-speaker-series-emilio-ferrera-usc-communication-computer-science/
LOCATION:Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
CATEGORIES:Department Speaker Series
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240229T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240229T121500
DTSTAMP:20260424T085148
CREATED:20230925T184021Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240220T221617Z
UID:6846-1709204400-1709208900@comm.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Department Speaker Series: Carolyn Parkinson (UCLA\, Psychology)
DESCRIPTION:Title: The brain in the social world: Integrating approaches from psychology\, neuroscience\, and social network analysis\n \nAbstract: This talk will cover work integrating theory and methods from psychology\, neuroscience\, and social network analysis to examine how people track\, encode\, and are influenced by the social networks that they inhabit. One set of studies tests if\, when\, and how people retrieve knowledge of familiar others’ positions in their real-world social networks when encountering them. Related research tests how this knowledge\, once retrieved\, shapes downstream processing and behavior. A second set of studies tests if human social networks exhibit assortativity in how their members perceive\, interpret\, and respond to their environment. Consistent with this possibility\, we find that proximity between people within their social networks is linked to similar neural responses to naturalistic stimuli\, similar subjective construals of such stimuli\, and similar patterns of brain connectivity. A final set of studies examines how shared understanding relates to overall levels of social connectedness within communities. We find that people who process the world in a manner that is more reflective of community norms have greater overall levels of subjective and objective social connection. All human cognition is embedded within social networks\, but research on information processing within individuals has progressed largely separately from research on the social networks in which individuals are embedded. The set of findings to be reviewed in this talk suggests that integrating approaches from psychology\, neuroscience\, and social network analysis can provide new insights into how individuals perceive\, shape\, and are shaped by the structure of their social world.
URL:https://comm.ucla.edu/event/department-speaker-series-carolyn-parkinson-ucla-psych/
LOCATION:Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
CATEGORIES:Department Speaker Series
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240125T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240125T121500
DTSTAMP:20260424T085148
CREATED:20230816T164117Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240117T192248Z
UID:6737-1706180400-1706184900@comm.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Department Speaker Series: Scott Page (University of Michigan\, Business\, Political Science\, Complex Systems\, and Economics)
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Scott E. Page (University of Michigan\, Santa Fe Institute). (website) \nTitle: Organizations and Cultural Coherence \nAbstract: I construct a mathematical framework to elucidate and analyze the interdependence between structural features of an organization and some of its cultural attributes.  By the structure of an organization\, I mean whether individual actions are assigned hierarchically\, agreed upon through a more equal democratic process\, or encouraged through incentives.  By culture\, I will focus on standard measurable features such as tightness\, individualism\, trust\, risk taking\, and uncertainty avoidance.  I show that congruence – the alignment of organization structure and culture – though an often articulated organizational goal does not\, except in rare cases\, imply efficiency.   The creation of a healthy\, constructive culture and not congruence should therefore be the goal of organizations. \n 
URL:https://comm.ucla.edu/event/department-speaker-series-scott-page/
LOCATION:Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
CATEGORIES:Department Speaker Series
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231116T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231116T121500
DTSTAMP:20260424T085148
CREATED:20230908T171750Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231031T183335Z
UID:6784-1700132400-1700136900@comm.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Department Speaker Series: Swabha Swayamdipta (USC\, Computer Science)
DESCRIPTION:Title: Understanding Online Discourse through Social Context and Structured Pragmatics \nAbstract: In an increasingly online world\, understanding discourse on social media is akin to understanding our society. However\, when it comes to social media discourse\, a disproportionate amount of focus has been laid on content moderation via hate speech detection. In this talk\, I will address a key limitation of this application: existing hate speech detection systems are riddled with racial biases introduced during annotation\, which are reinforced and propagated by models trained on such data. I will present the inadequacies of current methods for debiasing hate speech detection and show how the subjectivity of this task design leads to debiasing failures. Next\, I will focus on uncovering the origin of bias in toxic language detection. I will demonstrate how annotators’ demographics and beliefs influence their toxicity ratings\, and how ignoring such societal context can lead to biased outcomes. Finally\, I will present some ongoing work on understanding online discourse on homelessness\, which presents some unique challenges. Overall\, I will argue for the value of rethinking traditional the hate speech classification task\, and the need for richer context and nuance when considering online discourse.
URL:https://comm.ucla.edu/event/swabha-swayamdipta-usc-computer-science/
LOCATION:Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
CATEGORIES:Department Speaker Series
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231019T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231019T121500
DTSTAMP:20260424T085148
CREATED:20230908T165601Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231012T164009Z
UID:6781-1697713200-1697717700@comm.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Department Speaker Series: Jimmy Calanchini (UCR\, Psych)
DESCRIPTION:Title: Putting the Environment Back in Person-Environment Fit\n \nAbstract: Psychology scientists have recognized for decades that individual behavior is a function of both the person and the environment. However\, due to a dominant focus on individual differences\, psychological data on intergroup bias have historically been collected through small\, controlled experiments with the individual as the unit of analysis – to the relative exclusion of the environment. Recent technological advancements facilitate massive amounts of data to be collected from diverse populations and locations. Capitalizing on these newly-available data\, researchers can geolocate the responses of individuals to provide insight into regional variation in intergroup biases with a degree of ecological validity impossible in the laboratory. In this talk\, I will present correlational evidence linking regional biases to outcomes of consequence\, propose a novel theoretical perspective for understanding regional intergroup bias\, and discuss future directions for this emerging line of research.
URL:https://comm.ucla.edu/event/department-speaker-series-jimmy-calanchini-ucr-psych/
LOCATION:Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
CATEGORIES:Department Speaker Series
END:VEVENT
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