Sam Woolley received funding for his Communication Technology Research Lab

Sam Woolley and his newly launched Communication Technology Research Lab (CTRL) received a $200,000 award to fund its work in information, media technologies and improving digital literacy and democratic engagement globally, among other facets.

The award comes from Omidyar Network, an organization that has committed almost $2 billion toward initiatives intended to “bend the arc of the digital revolution toward shared power, prosperity and possibility.”

Woolley is the inaugural William S. Dietrich II Endowed Chair in Disinformation Studies and an associate professor in the Department of Communication. Woolley arrived at the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in the fall; previously, at  the University of Texas, he founded a Propaganda Research Lab. His research is focused on how emergent technologies are used in efforts to manipulate global communication processes.

“Specifically, we seek to illuminate how grassroots-led initiatives are contending with technologically enhanced problems related to computational propaganda,” Woolley said of CTRL. “We define computational propaganda as the use of automation, artificial intelligence and algorithms over emerging media technologies for the purpose of manipulating public opinion.”