Department Hosts Inaugural Communication Horizons Conference

  • by Richard W Huskey

Quick Summary

  • The Communication Horizons Conference is an annual conference organized by the Department of Communication at UC Davis. Each year's theme is organized around pressing social and scientific topics that intersect with the Department's research and teaching.
Man with glasses. Ones and zeros, like binary code, are projected onto his face.

The Department of Communication hosted its inaugural Communication Horizons conference from May 3 - 5, 2024. This year's conference theme was "Navigating the Complexities of Information Integrity in a Digital Age". The conference kicked off with a Friday-night keynote from Dr. Stuart Soroka (University of California Los Angeles), featured a Saturday-afternoon keynote from Dr. Tanu Mitra (University of Washington), and concluded with a wine-tasting trip to Napa. In addition to the keynote addresses, the conference showcased 30 research presentations (12 from researchers in the Department of Communication) spanning a diverse array of topics including: (1) Misinformation, Deception, and Correction, (2) Misinformation Cues, Dynamics, and Effects, (3) Emotional Influences on Message Selection, Production, and Diffusion, (4) Gatekeeping and Gatekeepers – Parents, Media Organizations, and Governments, (5) Artificial Intelligence – Helps, Harms, and Methodological Advances.

A total of 65 people participated in the three-day conference, with roughly a third of attendees visiting from other national and international universities (including two PhD Alumni).  We also attracted attendees from the Departments of Political Science, Sociology, and Computer Science at UC Davis.

We're already hard at work planning next year's event, which will be even bigger than this year's!