The Center of Communication Research at the U of A will host a colloquium with John Gastil on the changing digital media environment, domestic and foreign misinformation and disinformation campaigns, public trust in the information infrastructure, political polarization, incivility, political stalemates and unrepresentative policymaking.

The event will take place from 2-4 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 8, in the Arkansas Union 504. 

Gastil is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences and Political Science at the Pennsylvania State University, where he is senior scholar at the McCourtney Institute for Democracy. Gastil's research focuses on the theory and practice of deliberative democracy. The National Science Foundation has supported his research on the Oregon Citizens' Initiative Review, the Australian Citizens' Parliament and American juries.

This talk, titled "Forestalling the epidemic of 'truth decay': An application of deliberative and political communication theories to political decision making in a divided society," weaves together theories from political communication and deliberative democracy to take on challenges to democratic policymaking posed by misinformation, misperception and cognitive biases. The inspiration for the talk is the Truth Decay model popularized by the RAND Corporation, a venerable nonprofit that does research and analysis to support evidence-based public policies.