Critical Thinking and Global Democracy

A focus on critical thinking within education offers the opportunity to teach students the skills necessary to question the status quo, develop informed opinions, and contribute to preserving and promoting democracy in society. In this virtual event, presenters explored democracy, the what, how, and why of using critical thinking skills, how to think about and evaluate evidence, top tips and tools to combat and resist misinformation, and much more.

Session topics:

• Identity, Influencers, and Interference: How social media is leveraged to work against democracy

• Democracy & Science: Enhancing Critical Thinking for a Viable Future

• The Role of Critical Thinking, Education, and Democracy

Speakers

Renée DiResta (keynote)

Renée DiResta is a social media researcher and the author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality. She studies adversarial abuse online, ranging from state actors running influence operations, to spammers and scammers, to issues related to child safety. From 2019-2023 she was the Technical Research Manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, a cross-disciplinary program of research, teaching and policy engagement for the study of abuse in current information technologies. Renée has advised Congress, the executive branch, and academic, civic, and business organizations on issues related to technology and policy, including information operations, generative AI, election security, researcher transparency, child safety, and more.

Rachel Gibson

Rachel Gibson is Professor Politics at the University of Manchester. She has examined the growth and implications of digital technologies for parties, campaigns and voters over time and across a range of democracies. She is currently the Principal Investigator of the European Research Council funded Project ‘Digital Campaigning and Electoral Democracy’ (DiCED) and the UKRI funded Project Linking Digital Footprint and Survey Data for Open Research (DIGISURVOR). She has authored and co-edited several books on the topic, and published extensively in internationally peer reviewed generalist and specialist Political Science journals.

Jason Hannan

Jason Hannan is Professor in the Department of Rhetoric, Writing, and Communications at the University of Winnipeg. He is the author of Trolling Ourselves to Death: Democracy in the Age of Social Media (Oxford University Press, 2024), which received the 2024 Erving Goffman Award from the Media Ecology Association. He is also the editor of Meatsplaining: The Animal Agriculture Industry and the Rhetoric of Denial (Sydney University Press, 2020) and Truth in the Public Sphere (Lexington, 2020). His current book project (with Matt McManus) is Reactionary Speech: The Conservative Denial of Reality.

Darren Linvill

Darren Linvill is a professor in the department of communication and co-director of the Clemson University Watt Family Innovation Center's Media Forensics Hub. He has written and researched extensively about the strategy and tactics of foreign influence operations, with a focus on the work China and Russia engage in through social media. He has partnered with organizations including CNN, NBC, NPR, ProPublica and the BBC to uncover foreign operations targeting the U.S. and the West. Beyond his academic work, Darren has written for outlets including The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Foreign Affairs, and Lawfare.

Dan Chibnall

Dan Chibnall is the STEM Librarian and Associate Professor of Librarianship at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa and has been in that role since July 2016. He received his MLS from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2005. His focus is on embedded librarianship, information literacy, science communication, information behaviors, and the relationship between science & democracy. Dan teaches courses on the relationship between science fiction & science, misinformation & personal information behaviors, and science communication's role in educating the public about the role of science in everyday life.

Russell Michalak

Russell Michalak, MLIS, is the library director at Goldey-Beacom College. He has over 20 years of experience working in special (law and health sciences) libraries and small, mid-sized, and large academic libraries. He has also been working in library administration for 15 years. Michalak regularly publishes a column in the Journal of Library Administration called PosIT, which delves into all aspects of library-related information technologies and knowledge management used to connect users to information technology. Michalak publishes and presents regularly on artificial intelligence, library leadership and management, project management, library budgets and negotiating contracts, library assessment, textbook affordability, library privacy, and other related topics.

Reema Patel

Reema Patel is a thought-leader in the fields of technology, data and AI ethics, public engagement and participation, and diversity, equity and inclusion. She is an engaging speaker on subjects including technology ethics, diversity, AI-emerging tech, future of healthcare, among others. She is currently Policy Lead at the Digital Good Network and has previously led global research agency Ipsos's work on deliberative engagement. Reema has undertaken work at the cross-section of three fields- technology ethics, public engagement and diversity. She co-founded the Ada Lovelace Institute where she established its work on public engagement and participation. She is an author of several Ada Lovelace Institute’s reports, including Beyond Face Value, Rethinking Data, The Data Divide and Participatory Data Stewardship among others.

Sarah Morris

Sarah Morris is a librarian, educator, and curriculum designer whose research and work focuses on critical information, digital, and media literacy, misinformation, civic engagement, student success, and library and information science education. Sarah has been a librarian for ten years and has held positions at Loyola University Chicago and the University of Texas and served as the Head of Instruction and Engagement at the Emory University Libraries. In addition to her work in libraries, Sarah has worked on curriculum projects with partners that include the Mozilla Foundation and the National Science Foundation. She currently works with The Carter Center as a media literacy program consultant.

Barbara Robertson

Barbara Robertson, MA is an Instructor in Political Science at Georgia State University’s Perimeter College. She has a master’s in international affairs from the University of Georgia with an academic and professional focus on Authoritarianism, Democratic Backsliding, and News Media Literacy. Barbara is a member of the “Teaching Democratic Erosion” national cross-university consortium and has created and a designer of the "Critical Thinking in the Age of Misinformation" module used across multiple disciplines at Georgia State University to promote media literacy and democracy. More recently, she created and serves as the program coordinator for a study away in Washington, D.C. and a campus student poll worker program at Perimeter.

Hong Yao

Hong Yao has worked in the public library systems in New York City for over 30 years ever since she obtained her MLS Degree from Indiana University in 1993.  Currently, she holds the position of Director of Technical Services at the Queens Public Library. Hong has been an active member of ALA & other professional organizations.  Currently she is serving as ALA Councilor-at-Large, OCLC Global Council Delegate, and Advisory Board Member of “Be MediaWise: the Misinformation Resilience Toolkit for Libraries” Program.  Hong has been a frequent speaker for regional, national and international conferences.  Most recently she spoke at ALA 2024 conference on library services to migrants, at Hostos Community College on “Politics of Book Banning” and at Metropolitan New York Library council (Metro)’s  Program, called “Rest, Reset, and RE-Engage Symposium”.