The Center for Civic Media believes that technology can make positive impacts on civic participation and connect users for good ends, and aims to conduct research that helps to understand and further those goals. Conversely, technologies can amplify biases, spread disinformation, and foster unpleasant or even hateful interactions on the internet. By conducting research on media ecosystems with tools like Media Cloud, which aggregates vast quantities of news media to apply language processing and analyzes the resulting data, and by auditing current technological systems for bias and social good, we work to better understand technologies impact on Civic life, for better and worse.

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Recent Submissions

  • Coffee Farms as Design Labs: Manifesting Equity x Design Principles in Practice 

    Reynolds-Cuéllar, Pedro; Chong Lu Ming, Rubez (Design Research Society, 2020-08-11)
    New forms of co-design, as a mechanism for collaboration with historically marginalized communities, continue to emerge. From short academic experiences to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives, these programs ...
  • The Design of Pseudo-Participation 

    Palacin, Victoria; Nelimarkka, Matti; Reynolds-Cuéllar, Pedro; Becker, Christoph (Association for Computing Machinery, 2020-04-16)
    Participation is key to building an equitable, realistic and democratic future. Yet a lack of agency in decision making and agenda-setting is a growing phenomenon in the design of digital public services. We call this ...
  • Community-Based Technology Co-Design: Insights on Participation, and the Value of the “Co” 

    Reynolds-Cuéllar, Pedro; Delgado Ramos, Daniela (Association for Computing Machinery, 2020-06)
    Evidence and analysis of Community-Based Participatory Design (PD) and Co-Design programs are not abundant. Filling this gap allows for better understanding of (1) the value programs offer from a quantitative standpoint, ...

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