Joan Donovan (born 1979/1980) is an American social scientist researcher and lecturer at

Harvard Kennedy School The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), officially the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the school of public policy and government of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school offers master's degrees in public policy, public ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, an affiliate at Data and Society, and is research director of the Technology and Social Change Research Project at the

Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy The Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy is a Harvard Kennedy School research center that explores the intersection and impact of media, politics and public policy in theory and practice. Among other activities, the center or ...

. Donovan's expertise is in examining internet and technology studies, online extremism,

media manipulation Media manipulation is a series of related techniques in which partisans create an image or argument that favors their particular interests. Such tactics may include the use of logical fallacies, manipulation, outright deception (disinformation) ...

, and

disinformation campaign Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate. The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the ...

s, and in January 2020, she was called to testify at the Hearing on "Americans at Risk: Manipulation and Deception in the Digital Age" at Congress's Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. As Director, she published a number of impactful research papers and books. Donovan co-wrote a widely-read study that discovered that a significant number of participants in the January 6 attack on the Capitol were driven by their support for President Trump. In September of the same year, Donovan released a book titled "Meme Wars: The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy in America," which explores the spread of right-wing political conspiracy theories through online media. In 2022, it was announced that her research project would end in 2024.

Biography

Donovan earned her PhD in Sociology and Science Studies from the

University of California San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...

, and was a Post Doctoral Fellow at the Institute for Society and Genetics at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

where her expertise was social movements, technology, and white supremacist's use of DNA ancestry tests. She later held the role of Research Lead for the Media Manipulation Initiative at Data and Society, and mapped how interest groups, governments, political operatives, corporations, and others use the internet and media to disrupt social institutions. After Data and Society, Donovan went on to lead the Technology and Social Change Research Project at

and teach the class Media Manipulation and Disinformation Campaigns. Donovan has authored over 35 articles, paper, and books including: * How news organizations should cover white supremacist shootings, PBS NewsHour * Big Tech Companies Are Struggling With How To Best Police Their Platforms, ''NPR'' * Unlike Us Reader: Social Media Monopolies and Their Alternatives * Navigating the Tech Stack: When, Where and How Should we Moderate Content? * Toward a Militant Ethnography of Infrastructure: Cybercartographies of Order, Scale, and Scope across the Occupy Movement.

References

External links

Harvard profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Donovan, Joan American sociologists American women sociologists Internet theorists Harvard Kennedy School faculty Year of birth missing (living people) Living people University of California, San Diego alumni 21st-century American women