In the “Finding Signal in the Noise of Social Media” panel, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism Professor and co-author of the New York Times investigative piece “The Follower Factory” Mark Hansen and fellow panelist Reg Chua explore the tools, skills, and mindsets citizens and journalists need to sift through to help combat the rise of “fake news” and viral propaganda. Hansen’s past work with data is primarily within the journalistic practice, crafting stories utilizing algorithm, computation and visualization.

In his investigative piece, Dr. Hansen conducts an experiment the looked at what makes specific content trend on social media. Hear more about this experiment in the video below: