Canceled- W&L Hosts Shannon McGregor for Public Lecture Her talk, which is free and open to the public, is titled "Barely Legal: Political Ads, Social Media and #sponcon."

By Erica Turman
March 4, 2020

Shannon McGregor, assistant professor of communication at the University of Utah, will speak at Washington and Lee University on March 20 at 5 p.m. in Northern Auditorium.

Her talk, which is free and open to the public, is titled “Barely Legal: Political Ads, Social Media and #sponcon.”

McGregor studies the role of social media and its data in political processes, with a focus on political communication, journalism, public opinion and gender.

Her published work examines how three groups – political actors, the press and the public – use social media in politics, how that social media use impacts their behavior and how the policies and actions of social media companies, in turn, impact political communication on their sites. Her work aims to bring insights about and new theories of emerging political communication in hybrid media and political systems.

McGregor has published work in multiple publications, including the Journal of Communication and New Media & Society. She has also written for The Washington Post and The Guardian on the topics of social media and politics. She has also co-edited a book, “Digital Discussions: How Big Data Informs Political Communication,” with Talia Stroud, founding and current director of the Center for Media Engagement and a professor of communication studies and journalism at The University of Texas at Austin.

McGregor’s visit is presented by the Provost Office’s University Lectures series.