119th American Political Science Association Annual Meeting & Exhibition
Annual Meeting Theme Panels
APSA Annual Meeting theme panels are a great opportunity for scholars to gather for sessions and workshops, create valuable connections and research partnerships.
TLC at APSA: Political Science Education in an Age of Mis- and Disinformation
Participate in the Sixth Annual TLC at APSA, a day-long program promoting scholarly reflection on the tools, strategies, and pedagogical approaches enabling political science educators to develop and promote inclusive forms of civic literacy and engagement. See schedule of events.
Attend Pre-Conference Short Courses
APSA Annual Meeting pre-conference short courses provide diverse opportunities, either half day or full day, for professional development and offer attendees the chance to connect with scholars from a range of backgrounds. These courses will run on Wednesday, August 30.
Learn about APSA Mini Conferences
Mini-conferences are full days of content devoted to a theme. Each mini-conference is in pursuit of a larger cohesive goal than traditional panels provide, such as an edited volume or an omnibus dataset.
Featuring: Celebrating Fifty Years of Queer Scholarship at APSA Mini-Conference
Emerging Scholars Symposium and Lightning Rounds
The Emerging Scholars Symposium kicks off on Friday with the first of the Lightning Round sessions.These Lightning Round Sessions will take place Friday, September 1 and Saturday, September 2.
Check out iPoster Sessions and the iPoster Gallery
This year, APSA will be continuing to use electronic, multimedia iPosters and the iPoster Gallery to create and display iPosters for the 2023 APSA Annual Meeting.
2023 Conference Theme
Theme Statement: Rights and Responsibilities in an Age of Mis- and Disinformation
Political communication can be fraught with mis- and disinformation that can skew the political landscape and impact the attitudes and actions of political actors. Misinformation broadly refers to disseminating false, misleading, or unsubstantiated information, without intent to deceive. Disinformation goes further to deliberately mislead with biased information, manipulated facts, or propaganda. Both can include fake news, conspiracy theories, and rumors, and be spread by ordinary individuals, influencers, governments, public-relations firms, internet bots, or human-curated fake social media accounts.
Mis- and disinformation are not new, but these phenomena are becoming increasingly prevalent and problematic across the world. Advances in communication technologies mean that they can spread faster and wider than fact-based information. Polarized publics are especially eager consumers. Further innovation is producing “deep fakes” that make the distinction between fakes and facts even harder.
On one hand, spreading information–whether false or true–can be expressed in the terminology of rights. Efforts to address mis- and disinformation take place in the context of the internationally recognized human rights of freedom of thought and expression. Engaging in mis- and disinformation can be seen as exercising the right to freedom of thought and speech. In this vein, limiting or regulating information flows can be portrayed as overstepping or infringing upon these rights and controlling people’s actions. Governments may use tackling mis- and disinformation to justify infringing on these rights. At the extreme, critics have linked information-monitoring to the kinds of oppression we see from authoritarian governments.