Taylor N. Carlson, PhD

Taylor N. Carlson, PhD

Assistant Professor, Political Science, Arts & Sciences

Professor Carlson’s research focuses on understanding how information changes as it flows from the news to conversations between people. While primarily focused on the spread and distortion of political information, she is specifically interested in how the spread of information about public health issues can become distorted through conversations. In the face of widespread misinformation about public health issues (e.g. vaccinations, COVID 19), she aims to understand how individuals communicate about these issues, particularly within the context of a crisis. Previous work has shown that public health information becomes less accurate as it flows through communication networks. Professor Carlson’s work explores the extent to which partisan biases can disrupt information transmission about objective facts from the science community on heavily politicized issues.