No country in the world has been immune to the 21st century media revolution. A time when three networks and a daily newspaper presented Americans with similar stories and commentary is behind us. Today’s user of a personal cell phone and the Internet has immediate access to thousands of information sources from around the world. An individual also has the unprecedented power to share information that may or may not be true with millions.
Once hailed as a tool that would bring people and nations closer together, the Internet has also had the opposite effect, segmenting users into interest groups. Relying on vast quantities of data, social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google “microtarget” specific demographic and cultural groups. Many observers of this media free-for-all see it as a threat to democratic institutions and individual rights, privacy and security.
Individuals or governments that want to disrupt their own societies or others exploit the freedom of media to set one group against another or to sway an election. Some websites appeal to emotions, including fear.
Join us to learn how technology is shaping the flow of information and how it is used. Where do people in most countries get their news and other information? Will traditional media survive, and in what form? How are visual images especially effective in shaping our understanding of political and social issues?
How can journalists and the public discern what is misinformation, disinformation, or malicious distortion? How are hostile countries such as Russia weaponizing media to influence politics and elections?
When repressive governments or special interests target journalists, how can journalists operate? What role are social media playing in political movements around the world?
Who should bear responsibility for media content? Is regulation of the media – especially of social media – a good idea?
Camden Opera House in Camden, ME $275
Osher@Dartmouth, NH. To register for this venue and for more information, please visit: https://osher.dartmouth.edu/camden/
David Brancaccio is host and senior editor of American Public Media’s Marketplace Morning Report, the business program with the largest audience in any medium.
His Economy 4.0 series on Marketplace focused on ways to make the economy better serve more people. He anchored the award-winning public television news program NOW on PBS until 2010. His reporting has focused on the future of the economy, regulation of financial markets, the role of technology in labor markets, human rights, the environment, and social enterprises.
David’s work has earned some of the highest honors in broadcast journalism, including the Peabody, the Columbia-duPont, the Emmy, and the Walter Cronkite awards. His feature-length documentary film about economic alternatives entitled Fixing the Future was released in theaters nationwide in 2012 and is now available from Netflix, iTunes, and on-demand cable television.
He is author of a book about Americans applying their personal values to their money, entitled Squandering Aimlessly. David has a BA from Wesleyan University and an MA in journalism from Stanford University. He is married to Mary Brancaccio, a poet and educator. He grew up in Waterville, Maine and also attended schools in Madagascar, Ghana, and Italy. His enjoys public speaking, moderating, bicycling and photography.
Nicco Mele is on the faculty at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and is the faculty co-chair of the Harvard Council on the Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence.
From 2016 to 2019, Nicco was the Director of the Center, where he started new programs focused on understanding misinformation on social networks; sustainable models for local journalism; institutional anti-racism in media and algorithms; and platform accountability. He continues to teach classes on technology’s impact on media, politics, and public policy. Nicco’s prior experience includes founding technology companies, working on political campaigns, and a stint as a media executive at the Los Angeles Times. He advises several startups, including Blueprint Robotics (on-demand manufacturing), Optimus Ride (autonomous vehicles), Plympton (publishing), and Cignify (data analytics). Nicco serves as the board chair of Democracy.Works and MassPoetry. He has published widely, including the international bestseller The End of Big: How The Digital Revolution Makes David The New Goliath published in 2013 by St. Martin’s Press. Longer bio available here.
The Camden Conference invites teachers and students to attend the 33nd annual Camden Conference, THE MEDIA REVOLUTION: CHANGING THE WORLD, February 21 - 23, 2020 in Camden, Maine.
The Conference is presented live from the historic Camden Opera House and streamed in HD to the Strand Theatre in Rockland, the Hutchinson Center in Belfast, and USM’s Luther Bonney Auditorium in Portland.
Special teacher-student rates are available at the streaming sites: Full-time students may attend the Conference at any satellite venue for just $50. Teachers who bring 3 or more students also receive that special $50 rate. And, the Camden Conference is approved for 1.5 Continuing Education Units for teachers!
REGISTER NOW
(or check your registration status)
ACCESS MEMBERS-ONLY EVENTS
(Via our Members Portal)
LIVESTREAMING ACCESS
(A Members-Only Benefit)
REGISTER ANYTIME
(for the upcoming conference)
ACCESS MEMBERS-ONLY EVENTS
(Via our Members Portal)
LIVESTREAMING ACCESS
(A Members-Only Benefit)
REGISTER NOW
(As of December 2, 2019)
33RD ANNUAL CONFERENCE
CHOICE OF VENUES
Camden, Rockland, Belfast & Portland, Maine
HELP A STUDENT
Attend the Conference
FOR STUDENTS
in High School & College
IMPACT THEIR LIVES
(Broader perspectives & new opportunities)
To register for the Osher@Dartmouth, NH location, please visit: https://osher.dartmouth.edu/camden/
Need help? Support@CamdenConference.org or call (207) 236-1034
The weekend couldn't have been better planned or managed. What a rich and charming experience it was.
….the speakers were all first-rate and were all lovely individuals, and Indira Lakshmanan was everything you could ask for in a moderator. The venue, the peripheral events, the flow of the programming, the questions we got from the audience – all of it was a delight. I think the format, especially, is something I might want to draw on for other conferences I'm involved in… In short, I've been to many, many conferences as this certainly rates as among the very best.
What a phenomenal and timely program. Every speaker and every panel hit it out of the park. While we were reviewing how much my wife and I learned over the weekend, I realized that the speakers themselves very likely learned or developed new ideas themselves. And since they have a far larger impact on the events of the day, their experience from the weekend may have even more value than ours. Thank you to the Camden Conference. Five stars to the Camden Conference organization.
I was impressed by the skills, background and range of speakers … I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to attend such a conference.
I found this year’s Camden Conference to be absolutely amazing. For me, it was … one continuous increasingly gratifying experience from beginning to end. The panel members were all extremely knowledgeable in their areas of expertise. They were articulate and they all were extremely insightful. They truly were committed to helping all of us become better informed about this chaotic world we live in. The panel represented such a wonderful degree of diversity. More importantly is the fact that such diversity could have differing opinions and find common ground.
I found this the most relevant and meaningful Conference I’ve attended (and I’ve attended a lot). A wonderful, stimulating event in mid-winter Maine. I plan to attend the Conference annually.” Conference attendee
“The audience was very engaged, the questions were excellent, and it was very stimulating to hear people with diverse opinions debate with each other.
Camden is the next Davos!
Thank you again for inviting me to the Camden Conference, which was truly a wonderful experience. As I have told colleagues and friends everywhere, it was one of the best organized and best attended conferences I have ever spoken at. It was also, even more importantly, one of the most interesting. What a great cast of speakers. Please call upon me again if you think I will fit the topic of a future conference.
The conference, in my opinion was as good as I could hope for. It was wonderful. Such a terrific and credentialed and scholarly faculty. It was tremendous. And I learned a huge amount. I might not be so stupid when I hear talk about immigration and consider inserting my “two cents worth” - Thank you for a wonderful educational experience. Learning never hurts
…The Camden Conference just might be the best conference of its type in the United States.
“The world as we know it has been destroyed. We
Maria Ressa is the CEO and Executive Editor, as well as
As part of the library’s Campaign for the Future, the Camden
The fracturing and realignment of global power foreseen in the
