research
I have a number of research projects in various stages.
Technology & Human Trafficking
Our team at the Center on Communication Leadership & Policy is working on researching and developing technologies to monitor and combat human trafficking and modern day slavery. This project was launched in 2010 at a meeting with the US Department of State, USAID, and a number of technology firms, and NGOs. In August, 2010, I led a team to Thailand and Cambodia to research how mobile and internet-based technologies can better connect organizations, communities, and individuals combating human trafficking. In partnership with the USC Information Sciences Institute we are developing technological platforms that leverage real-time data and computational linguistics to provide actionable information for those engaged in counter-trafficking efforts.
In 2011, we published a comprehensive report on the role of online classifieds and social networking sites in human trafficking: http://technologyandtrafficking.usc.edu/
In 2012, I was appointed to a National Academies of Sciences/Institute of Medicine committee to study domestic minor sex trafficking/commercial sexual exploitation of children (commissioned by the U.S. Department of Justice). I am also a member of the California Attorney General’s working group on human trafficking.
Social media in emergency & disaster
I was the Principle Investigator with Irina Shklovski (IT University Copenhagen) on a grant from the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation for social science research on the Los Angeles Fire Department’s use of Twitter in times of emergency, wildfire, and disaster. Our article, on Emergency Management and Social Media Evangelism, was presented at the International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management in Seattle, 2010, and published in the International Journal for Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management in 2011.
In November, 2010, I traveled to Haiti with a research team of emergency management and architecture specialists from New York. We conducted research on technologies and innovations used by vulnerable populations in camps and shelters in Port-au-Prince.
Digital Remix
An article published in Information, Communication & Society evaluates the ethics of cultural reappropriation and remix practices in digital networked environments. Aram Sinnreich (NYU), Marissa Gluck, and I argue that an attitudinal shift in evaluating the value of appropriated content is underway as the lines between consumer and producer continue to blur. We discussed versions of this research at Media in Transition 5 at MIT and the International Communication Association in San Francisco. In 2011, we launched a followup survey to develop longitudinal data in this area. Aram Sinnreich and I presented these findings at the International Communication Association in Phoenix in 2012.
Network performance
Alain Renaud (Bournemouth University, UK) and I have an article under review wherein we investigate the socio-cultural dimensions of networked performance over the Internet. We interviewed a distributed ensemble of musicians playing synchronically over the Internet from disparate global locations. We presented portions of this study at the International Communication Association in Montreal, Canada, and the International Association for the Study of Popular Music in Birmingham, UK.
Creative Commons, Copyright, and Internet Music
At the Stanhope Centre for Communication Policy Research and the LSE I wrote an article (still under review) on the use of Creative Commons licenses and CC Mixter as a reaction to traditional copyright and as a legitimizing mechanism for the global exchange of digital content. In addition, Prodromos Tsiavos (LSE) and I published an article on the UK’s review of intellectual property rights and Creative Commons in Intermedia: Journal of the International Institute of Communication. I presented this research at the International Communication Association in New York and Dresden, Germany.
As a researcher with the Norman Lear Center, an entertainment and society think tank, I published the first academic study on Internet music consumption, which found that users downloading MP3s peer to peer on Napster were still willing to pay for music. The report was covered in the Los Angeles Times, Reuters, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Bloomberg News, Congressional Quarterly, and the Washington Post.