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The Bulletin of Technology & Public Life
Publishing research at the intersection of technology, people, and power.
The Bulletin of Technology and Public Life is a project of the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Social platforms, algorithms, and digital infrastructures play vital roles in modern life, and it’s crucial that we study them through a critical lens. The Bulletin of Technology and Public Life centers questions of power, history, and culture in how we understand the impact of emerging technologies on democracy and society.
We provide open access to research in non-traditional formats for a public audience including journalists, technologists, policy makers… and you.
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Published: May 29, 2024
This report analyzes international, federal, and state level legislation to protect child safety online. While well-meaning, this legislation is driven by moral panic rather than empirical evidence, is unlikely to help young people, and will harm privacy and free expression.
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Published: May 22, 2024
Who safeguards democracy against tech-driven political violence? Eisenstat, Hendrix, & Kreiss analyze online platforms' roles in US and global election violence, proposing preventive measures. They question the effectiveness of current models in addressing extremism threats.
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Published: May 15, 2024
Who has the power to shape AI systems, and for whose benefit? Scott Timcke explores regulatory paradigms of AI control rights in China, the EU, and the US, and problematizes the exclusion of the Global South from shaping these evolving paradigms.
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Published: Nov 09, 2023
How is the First Amendment used as a strategic tool in the service of political, social, and cultural power? Four CITAP faculty discuss.
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Published: Oct 11, 2023
Although academics frequently speak to the press, we aren't taught how and mostly learn by doing. This is a crowd-sourced guide to working with journalists.
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Published: May 23, 2023
Historical and contemporary formations of power and state violence, including imperialism, colonialism, and militarism impact current modalities of technological and institutional governance
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Published: May 11, 2023
Offering insight on how to compete with coordinated deceptive information campaigns - created in collaboration with UNC Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life
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Published: Jan 24, 2023
If you want to understand how the public is being harmed by disinformation, start with state violence. Only then can we account for the unequal social terrain produced by forms of interlocking oppression.
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Published: Jan 23, 2023
Disinformation isn't about truth. It's about speculation.
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Published: Jan 23, 2023
Epistemological instability poses a challenge for contemporary democracies. But it also opens democratic possibilities.
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Published: Jan 23, 2023
"My knowledge is better than yours" and other right-wing configurations of truth and media literacy on YouTube reproduce global white supremacy.
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Published: Jan 23, 2023
If you want to understand who disinformation serves, look to discursive constructions of identity and morality.
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Published: Jan 23, 2023
Experts in Mali, the Sahel, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Senegal show how Africa-specific dynamics of democratization, state control, and mobility shape the creation of its information disorder.
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Published: Jan 23, 2023
Inverting the script of the Global South case study, Yến-Khanh and Phelan show what insight the Vietnamese context offers the mis/disinformation crisis in Western liberal democracies.
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Published: Jan 23, 2023
Digital disinformation is changing society, but the societal 3 C's (class, community, and context) are changing disinformation, too.
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Published: Jan 23, 2023
Disinformation is a form of socially constructed ignorance, so let's look at the actors who disseminate it and their motives.
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Published: Jan 23, 2023
Why ignore the classics? Public relations and persuasion contribute to disinformation dissemination, too.
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Published: Jan 23, 2023
Certain stylistic patterns cut across news, politics, and entertainment—all pointing to conservative media corporations' creation of the conditions for disinformation.
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Published: Jan 23, 2023
Maybe it's time for disinformation studies (at least in its current form) to fade away - or become something new
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Published: May 10, 2022
This literature review examines cross-disciplinary work on radicalization to better understand the present concerns around online radicalization and far-right extremist and fringe movements.
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Published: Mar 25, 2021
A Critical Evaluation of Disinformation Narratives in Media and Scholarship
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Published: Dec 22, 2020
A summary of current research and policy proposals
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Published: Aug 15, 2020
An Election Coverage Resource for Media Production
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Published: Aug 07, 2020
Four recommendations about what social media can still do to protect elections
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Published: May 22, 2020
A side-by-side comparison of social media platforms’ attempts to enforce truth and the challenges they face
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Published: Jan 31, 2020
An overview of social media and digital advertising platforms' policies
