Have you ever known an aging robot? Meet Sylvia, the first aging virtual influencer. Premiering on November 20, 2020 at the International Documentary FilmFestival Amsterdam (IDFA), attendee’s can look back on Sylvia’s life, and witness its end. Virtual Influencers are computer-generated characters that exist on social media and appear as real humans. These characters are complex
CategoryProject Updates
Introducing Reporting Grants from Maternal Figures
Led by Ashley Okwuosa and Chuma Asuzu, Maternal Figures is a solutions journalism project aiming to encourage journalists to investigate solutions to an endemic problem. The project focuses on Nigeria’s maternal health, which has one of the world’s worst outcomes. For context, Nigeria’s estimated 40,000 maternal deaths account for a staggering 14% of the world’s annual
Meet ‘Sylvia’: A Project Challenging Ageism in Digital Space
Ziv Schneider is a creative technologist at The Brown Institute for Media Innovation based at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Schneider is breaking barriers in the sphere of Virtual Influencers. Virtual Influencers are computer-generated characters that exist on social media and appear as real humans – yet completely ignore the reality of aging. Like the
Announcing the Launch of the Stanford Cable TV News Analyzer
The Brown Institute for Media Innovation is pleased to announce the launch of the Stanford Cable TV News Analyzer, an interactive tool that gives the public the ability to not just search transcripts, but also compute the screen time of public figures in nearly 24-7 broadcasts from CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. Each day, cable
Who’s in Charge?
This post is part of a series of profiles of our current 2019-20 Magic Grants. It gives us an opportunity to brag about the great work being done by our grantees, and also to encourage you to consider applying for one of next year’s grants! Funding could start as early as July 1, depending on
Life on the Screen
This post is part of a series of profiles of our current 2019-20 Magic Grants. It gives us an opportunity to brag about the great work being done by our grantees, and also to encourage you to consider applying for one of next year’s grants! Funding could start as early as July 1, depending on
2019-20 Magic Grant Profile: Tech Tweets
This post is part of a series of profiles of our current 2019-20 Magic Grants. It gives us an opportunity to brag about the great work being done by our grantees, and also to encourage you to consider applying for one of next year’s grants! Funding could start as early as July 1, depending on
2019-20 Magic Grant Profile: Maternal Figures
This post is part of a series of profiles of our current 2019-20 Magic Grants. It gives us an opportunity to brag about the great work being done by our grantees, and also to encourage you to consider applying for one of next year’s grants! Funding could start as early as July 1, depending on
2019-20 Magic Grant Profile: Stories as Programs
Among the projects funded as 2019-20 Magic Grants is a novel technology for teaching “computational thinking.” With their grant, Griffin Dietz and Elizabeth Murnane, computer scientists based in Stanford, are producing A Voice Based Interface for Storytelling and Programming in Early Elementary Years — a voice assistant-style application that teaches elementary school students the basics