The University of Pennsylvania was recently gifted $10 million in funding, which will be used to launch a new center focused on media, technology, and democracy, writes Ryan Mulligan for the Philadelphia Business Journal.
The new Penn Center on Media, Technology and Democracy will be a collaborative across six schools at Penn. It will be housed in the soon-to-open Amy Gutmann Hall as part of the Penn School of Engineering.
The funding came from a $5 million gift from the Knight Foundation, which was matched by investments across the six schools. They are: Penn Engineering, the Wharton School, Penn Carey Law, the Annenberg School for Communication, Penn Arts & Sciences, and the School of Social Policy & Practice.
The new center will conduct research at the crossroads of political science and journalism.
According to Penn university, the goal is to be a “global hub for researchers, private sector leaders, and for policymakers” by conducting research, sharing findings, and developing dashboards portraying the current media landscape.
“There is a critical societal need to better understand — and respond to — the way media and information technologies mediate and even influence global conversations,” Penn interim president J. Larry Jameson said in a statement.
Read more about the new Penn Center on Media, Technology and Democracy in the Philadelphia Business Journal.
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