#Performances
#About the event
The Hype Machine is a landmark insider’s tour of how social media affects our decision-making and shapes our world in ways both useful and dangerous, with critical ideas on how to protect ourselves in the 2020 election and beyond.
MIT professor Sinan Aral isn’t only one of the world’s leading experts on social media—he’s also an entrepreneur and investor, giving him an unparalleled 360-degree view of the technology’s great promise as well as its outsize capacity to damage our politics, our economy, and even our personal health.
Drawing on two decades of his own research and business experience, Aral goes under the hood of the biggest, most powerful social networks to tackle the critical question of just how much social media actually shapes our choices, for better or worse. Aral shows how the tech behind social media offers the same set of behaviour-influencing levers to both Russian hackers and brand marketers—to everyone who hopes to change the way we think and act—which is why its consequences affect everything from elections to business, dating to health.
The Hype Machine offers the definitive guide to understanding and harnessing for good the technology that has redefined our world overnight.
#Artist
Michaela Kalowski
Michaela Kalowski is an interviewer, moderator and curator for writers and ideas festivals. In 2022 she's curator of International Author events for Brisbane Writers Festival and curator of ABC RN's on-air writers festival, Big Weekend of Books. She's conducted radio interviews for ABC RN's The Music Show, Big Ideas and The Bookshelf, ABC Classic and has presented programs across ABC radio. Recent interviews include Margaret Atwood, David Mitchell, Trent Dalton and Robert Jones Jr.
Her website is www.michaelakalowski.com.