Lydia Nobbs, Author at Public Seminar

Technology

Truth, Damned Truth, and Statistics: A Quiet Mathematical Revolution Reshaping our Algorithmically-Mediated World

An interview with Justin Joque

July 20, 2022 • by Lydia Nobbs and Justin Joque

There’s a shift in statistical approaches from one driven by what we traditionally think of as knowledge—knowing ‘the truth’—to a more economic approach. That shows what's always been the case but admits it in a more clear-eyed way: knowledge production is always tied to political economy. In fact, the ways ...

The Riot on New Zealand’s Front Lawn

Reckoning with an antivax occupation, homegrown racism, and global white nationalism

April 11, 2022 • by Lydia Nobbs

Ardern’s words might have comforted those New Zealanders taken aback by the protest, but it fails to seriously engage with the complexity of the occupation, which intermingled transnational far-right tactics with homegrown white supremacy, wellness misinformation, and indigenous disenfranchisement. The protest, and Ardern’s response, has wide implications for parsing both ...

“Post-Truth,” And “Social Research”

Oxford English Dictionary’s word of 2016

December 28, 2016 • by Lydia Nobbs

What happens when facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief? This phenomenon is known as “post-truth,” a term that was named word of 2016 by the Oxford English Dictionary. When false news is seen as credible and the metrics of prediction have ...