Digital Activism Research Project

The mission of the Digital Activism Research Project is to collect case studies and event data on incidents of digital activism.

The project began in 2012, has involved dozens of undergraduates in original research, had multiple funders and several kinds of research outputs and impacts. Ongoing research efforts are live and online at www.digital-activism.org.

Jason Rundell, a student in the Master of Communication in Digital Media Program at the University of Washington has created a great video introducing the Digital Activism Research Project.

Project Team

Matthew Adeiza

Joined the program in 2013. We are working on a book chapter about the use of social media and international development. He helps manage the Digital Activism Research Project. In the summer of 2014 I helped him come for an extended period of research on global communication and the CMCS summer school on digital activism.

Jessica Beyers

Defended her dissertation on movements that began online and apolitical but transitioned to various forms of activist organizations. She is managing a large research project on technology and development in Burma, and her dissertation came out as a book, Expect Us: Online Communities and Political Mobilization, from Oxford University Press.

Laura Busch

Successfully defended her project in Spring 2014.We have collaborated on several projects, including a dataset of gini coefficients for technology access (now available from the ICPSR) and a paper about indexing global technology diffusion that we published in The Information Society. She now has a post-doc at UW.

Frank Edwards

A graduate student in the Sociology Department, is serving as the lead analyst on the Digital Activism Research Project and produced much of the analysis discussed in our final report.

Jason Gilmore

Now at the University of Utah, and I developed a project to study the use of social media during Brazil’s 2010 elections. We coauthored a book chapter together, and he continued on with several excellent articles in academic journals.

Fenwick McKelvey

Was a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow with me at the University of Washington. He focuses on how software affords new forms of control in digital communication systems and is launching a new project called Programming the Vote. He is now an assistant professor at Concordia University.

Mary Joyce

Has helped manage the Digital Activism Research Project, which develops original data sets on global digital activism. I have helped secure a significant grant from the US Institutes of Peace and a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation to support her research.

Shin Lee

Works on technology diffusion and journalistic norms in South East Asia, and he specializes in large data sets on public opinion and technology use. We wrote a paper on citizen journalism and digital activism through the Digital Activism Research Project, and I chaired his doctoral committee. Currently, he is a post-doc at Hong Kong University.

Muzammil Hussain

Helped manage the Project on Information Technology and Political Islam, we have written several articles and book chapters together, just finished Democracy's Fourth Wave? for Oxford University Press. I chaired his doctoral project, and he is an assistant professor in Communication Studies at the University of Michigan.

Ruth Moon

Is doing a doctoral project on journalism ethics in authoritarian regimes, a project that will likely involve extended fieldwork in Rwanda. I am chairing her doctoral work.

Luis Santana

Studies the impact of information technologies on public participation in civil society groups. We have collaborated on citizen journalism and digital activism research, and I chaired his doctoral committee. He currently teaches at the Catholic University of Santiago, Chile.

Digital Activism Research Project

Project Team

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Digital Activism Research Project

Project Team

Related Research

Digital Activism and Non Violent Conflict

Channeling Diversity in the Public Spectrum

Related Impact

Social media stew plays potent role in global digital activism

Funded by

Institutional Affiliations

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