Former Penn President Amy Gutmann will serve as a faculty advisor for the Penn Center on Media, Technology and Democracy.
Gutmann — a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication — will contribute to the organization’s research on media and democracy. In a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian, Gutmann wrote that she was drawn to the center’s mission, which supports her long-standing work on “the relationship between education and democracy.”
“I am excited to join Penn MEDIATED because its mission is to understand how our incredibly important information ecosystem—from traditional journalism to radio and tv to social media to podcasts to AI—impacts our lives and specifically our democracy,” Gutmann wrote.
In her role, Gutmann will advise the center’s research and programming as it studies how evolving media environments “foster a more informed society and strengthen the foundations of democracy.”
“Our health and that of our democracy depends on the health of our information ecosystem,” Gutmann wrote. “For education and democracy to serve the people, we must join in searching for truth and understanding.”
She added that this goal has been “a central part” of her “life’s work” and is Penn MEDIATED’s “core mission.”
Gutmann served as Penn’s president from 2004-22, making her the longest-serving president in the University’s history. Following her presidency, she served as the United States ambassador to Germany from 2022-24 during the Biden administration.
She also pointed to artificial intelligence, specifically large language models, as an “urgent area” that is currently “shaping civic discourse” — through the mechanisms it employs to “discuss political topics, refer to politicians, and relay election information.”
RELATED:
Hill College House fellows say Penn terminated their appointments ‘out of the blue’
Joshua Beeman permanently appointed Penn’s chief information officer, IT vice president
Penn MEDIATED has embarked on a project to “improve our understanding of how AI is affecting democratic discourse, and what we can do in response,” Gutmann wrote.
Alex Engler, the center’s executive director, told the DP that Gutmann, who “has a really distinguished background” in public service and research experience with deliberative democracy, is expected to contribute to the center’s larger direction.
“We’re working together to make sure that the big-picture investments that the center makes are strategically aligned,” Engler said.
Gutmann emphasized the center’s interdisciplinary research — including its faculty members’ commitment to developing data infrastructure and computational tools that can be used to study the information ecosystem.
She added that she is “especially interested in helping to ensure that this research reaches the students, advocates, policymakers, and institutions who can use it to make decisions that strengthen our democracy.”
Engler explained that the center aims to connect research with institutions involved in media and policymaking.
“We hope to leverage Amy Gutmann as an intermediary between the research that Penn is producing, and the institutions that make real decisions about things like news coverage and how to invest journalistic resources, and how to contextualize and present information,” Engler said.
Gutmann will open Penn MEDIATED’s inaugural conference in late August.
“I am proud to join Penn MEDIATED and contribute in every way I can to expanding cutting-edge empirical research and engendering greater public understanding and impact,” Gutmann concluded.
