2019-09-20, 12 p.m. – 1:30 p.m., Lady Bird Johnson Room, CMA 5.136

Join the Technology & Information Policy Institute as we host Samuel C. Woolley, Assistant Professor in the Journalism School at the Moody College of Communication. Professor Woolley will present his talk, Addressing the Next Wave of Computational Propaganda. 

If you would like an invitation to attend, email [email protected].

Lunch provided with RSVP.

Samuel C. Woolley is an assistant professor at The University of Texas at Austin. He has affiliations as a research associate at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, as a visiting scholar at the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) at the University of California at Berkeley, and as a research affiliate at the Project for Democracy and the Internet at Stanford University.

Woolley’s research is focused on how emergent technologies are used in and around global political communication. His work on computational propaganda—the use of social media in attempts to manipulate public opinion—has revealed the ways in which a wide variety of political groups in the United States and abroad have leveraged tools such as bots and trending algorithms and tactics of disinformation and trolling in efforts to control information flows online. His projects on digital politics, automation/AI, social media, and political polarization have been funded by the Ford Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the New Venture Fund for Communications, and others.

He has a forthcoming (Fall 2018) book, Computational Propaganda: Political Parties, Politicians, and Political Manipulation on Social Media, for the Oxford Studies in Digital Politics series at Oxford University Press. This volume of country-specific case studies is co-edited with Dr. Philip N. Howard. Woolley is currently working on a solo-authored book, tentatively titled DIGIPROP, with PublicAffairs/Hachette Book Group. He has published several peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and white papers on emergent technology, the Internet and public life in publications such as the Journal of Information Technology and Politics, the International Journal of CommunicationA Networked Self: Platforms, Stories, ConnectionsThe Political Economy of Robots: Prospects for Prosperity and Peace in an Automated 21st Century, The Handbook of Media, Conflict and Security, and Can Public Diplomacy Survive the Internet? Bots, Echo Chambers and Disinformation.

Woolley currently directs the Digital Intelligence Lab, a research and policy-oriented project at the Institute for the Future—a 50-year-old think-tank located in Palo Alto, CA. Before this, he served as the director of research at the National Science Foundation and European Research Council supported Computational Propaganda Project at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. He is a current Belfer Fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center for Science and technology. He is a former fellow at Jigsaw, Google’s think-tank and technology incubator, at the Center Tech Policy Lab at the University of Washington’s Schools of Law and Information, and at the Center for Media, Data and Society at Central European University.

His public work on computational propaganda and social media bots have appeared in venues including Wiredthe Guardian, and The Atlantic. For his research, Woolley has been featured in publications such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Guardian and on PBS’ Frontline, BBC’s News at Ten, and ABC’s Today. His work on computational propaganda and bots has been presented to members of the U.S. Congress, the U.K. Parliament, NATO, and others. His B.A. is in anthropology from the University of San Diego, his M.A. is in Cultural Studies from the Claremont Graduate University, and his Ph.D. is in Communication from the University of Washington. His website is samwoolley.org and he tweets from @samuelwoolley.