Advancing our community
LAS influence
The College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is filled with accomplished, thoughtful, and dedicated faculty, staff, students, and alumni whose work influences many advancements throughout our community. LAS strives to address the world’s fundamental problems and grand challenges through indispensable research, innovative courses, and an ingrained focus on diversity.
Read on to learn how the College of LAS is advancing our community in Urbana-Champaign and beyond.
Research: Political misinformation/disinformation leads to divorces, breakups
Differing ideologies led to strained romantic bonds
Illinois News Bureau's Sharita Forrest interviews Illinois communication professor, Emily Van Duyn, who conducted in-depth interviews with 28 people who had recently ended a relationship with a partner whose political ideology did not match their own.
Many of the participants mentioned that their media choices were responsible for the political differences that ultimately caused the relationships to end. Their stories offer fresh insights that the corrosive effects of the tendentiousness being fueled by disinformation/misinformation and partisan online communities in the public sphere can be just as divisive in private.
“It’s important to note that these relationships were not doomed for failure because of differing political beliefs,” the author said. “They failed, at least in part, because those differing beliefs were associated with different realities that disrupted a shared identity and shared reality with their partner.”
Van Duyn said the study participants’ experiences went beyond differing interpretations of political facts because false information created alternate, fictional realities that isolated the partners from each other ideologically and relationally, straining their bonds until the relationships failed.
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The researcher said her findings, published in the journal New Media and Society, draw on the theory of shared reality, shedding light on the potential implications for intimate relationships when online disinformation/misinformation and radicalization disrupt individuals’ expectations that their partners will recognize and validate their respective understanding of the world.
940 Feet series
Join LAS professors and students for a stroll on the Quad, and learn more about the influential people advancing our community.
Professor brings to light charges for ice and other discriminatory practices
Some nightclubs in Chicago use tactics such as charging Black men inflated prices for drinks or turning them away at the door and not permitting them inside, a team led by sociology professor Reuben A. Buford May found in a recent study.
Researchers gain new insight into underground root nodules
Illinois plant biology researchers identified clusters of genes in soil bacteria that enhance plant growth.
Professor Ellen Buckley gives account of studying above the Arctic Circle
Ellen Buckley, professor of Earth science and environmental change, gives a first person account of Arctic research.
Faculty research
The College of LAS has more than 600 faculty experts working on the world’s fundamental problems and grand challenges. Learn about their work.
