Events
Past Event
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Yingdan Lu, Northwestern School of Communication "The Evolution of Authoritarian Propaganda in the Digital Age"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Yingdan Lu, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Studies, Northwestern University
Title:
The Evolution of Authoritarian Propaganda in the Digital Age
Abstract:
How can authoritarian governments capture public attention in the digital era? This research talk explores the transformed landscape of information control in authoritarian regimes, which face the dual challenges of audience fragmentation across diverse media channels and heightened competition with non-governmental actors for public attention. In this talk, I will present two fundamental shifts that illustrate the evolution of authoritarian propaganda in the digital age. First, I theorize a decentralized model for producing and disseminating propaganda on social media and identify evidence of this model in China through a computational analysis of nearly five million videos from Douyin (Chinese TikTok). Second, I discuss how authoritarian regimes have been harnessing entertainment media platforms and influential actors to amplify the visibility of state-created content, with empirical evidence from China. Together, these studies contribute to our understanding of how digital technologies are changing not only the content of propaganda, but also the way in which propaganda materials are produced and disseminated.
Speaker Bio:
Yingdan Lu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Northwestern University, and co-director of the Computational Multimodal Communication Lab. Her research focuses on digital technology, political communication, and information manipulation. She uses computational and qualitative methods to understand the evolution and engagement of digital propaganda in authoritarian regimes and how individuals encounter and communicate multimodal (mis)information in AI-mediated environments. Her work has appeared in leading peer-reviewed journals across communication, political science, and human-computer interaction. Before joining Northwestern, Yingdan received her Ph.D. in Communication and a Ph.D. minor in Political Science from Stanford University.
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/92346340083
Passcode: NICO24
About the Speaker Series:
Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems, data science and network science. It brings together attendees ranging from graduate students to senior faculty who span all of the schools across Northwestern, from applied math to sociology to biology and every discipline in-between. Please visit: https://bit.ly/WedatNICO for information on future speakers.
Time
Wednesday, November 6, 2024 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO Fall Seminar Series returns on Sept 24th! Emma Alexander, Northwestern University
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
//
Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
The Wednesdays @ NICO Fall Seminar Series returns on September 24th and will run through November 12th, 2025. Detailed speaker information, talk titles, abstracts, and zoom links will be available soon.
This fall, we are honored to host the following distinguished speakers:
9/24 - Emma Alexander, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University
September 24, 2025 | 12:00 PM US Central
Chambers Hall, Lower Level, 600 Foster Street, Evanston, IL
Constrained Information Optimization in Visual Cortex
Animal brains represent information to complete a variety of tasks under systematically-changing conditions. The Bio-Inspired Vision Lab at Northwestern is developing tools to identify signatures of optimality in neural population codes, so that we can interpret the computational goals of visual neurons from cell measurements. Results include evidence of hierarchical visual processing in primate stereo vision and a biophysically-grounded model of metabolic stress in calorie-restricted mice.
10/1 - Sebastien Martin, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University "When algorithms meet policy - Changing the school bus system of Boston and San Francisco"
10/8 - Tomer Ullman, Dept of Psychology, Harvard University "Good Enough: Approximations in Mental Simulation and Intuitive Physics"
10/15 - Patrick Park, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University "Back to ‘Data’ Science in the Age of AI"
10/22 - Max Kreminski, Midjourney "Tracing and Shaping Paths in Design Space"
10/29 - Elizabeth Gerber, Mechanical Engineering and Communication Studies, Northwestern University "Richer Together: Human–AI Systems That Amplify Human Connection at Work"
11/5 - Julio Ottino, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Northwestern University "From Clocks to Clouds: The Complexity Revolution"
11/12 - Blaise Aguera y Arcas, Google Research "Symbiogenesis, Computational Parallelism, and Complexity in Evolution"
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: TBA via Zoom
About the Speaker Series:
Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems, data science and network science. It brings together attendees ranging from graduate students to senior faculty who span all of the schools across Northwestern, from applied math to sociology to biology and every discipline in-between. Please visit: https://bit.ly/WedatNICO for information on future speakers.
Time
Wednesday, September 24, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)