There are oceans of research papers digging into the various harms of online platforms. Researchers are asking urgent questions such as how hate speech and misinformation has an effect on our information environment, and our democracy.

But how does this research find it’s way to the media, policymakers, advocacy groups, or even tech companies themselves?

To help us answer this, Alix is joined this week by Issie Lapowsky, who recently authored Bridging The Divide: Translating Research on Digital Media into Policy and Practice — a report about how research reaches these four groups, and what they do with it. This episode also features John Sands from Knight Foundation, who commissioned this report.

Further reading:

• Bridging The Divide by Issie Lapowsky
• Knight Foundation

Issie Lapowsky is a journalist covering the intersection between tech, politics and national affairs. She has been published in WIRED, Protocol, The New York Times, and Fast Company.

John Sands is Senior Director of Media and Democracy at Knight Foundation. Since joining Knight Foundation in 2019, he has led more than $100 million in grant making to support independent scholarship and policy research on information and technology in the context of our democracy.