👩🎓 GloTech Lab celebrates Dr @norasuren ’s graduation. Nora is the first PhD grad of 2-year old GloTech.
🥳 Nora is assistant professor at Northeastern University, so still not too far away from us in Amherst. Nora’s research and teaching are in global media studies, creator cultures, platform labor and feminist media studies.
😚 Don’t be a stranger and come visit us often!
Today's the day: Smart as a City: The Politics of Test-Bed Urbanism is officially out in the world!
Eleven years ago I got on a plane to Kansas City with a lot of questions about cities and technology. Today I gave the book release talk at @cbi_umntc and last week we celebrated at @umass . Both events were full of people from all parts of my life - from my best friends going back to college to grad school to generous mentors and friends and colleagues who taught me a lot about research, writing, and camaraderie.
Thanks to everyone who's been a part of this and to three academic heroes who generously read and blurbed the book: @ruha9 , Sarah Sharma, and Harvey Molotch.
It's off my hands now. Out from @uc_press
👋🏼 GloTech Lab and Rutgers University’s Digital Ethnography Working Group held a virtual Meet & Greet last April 6th, 2026.
🥰 Both research groups share remarkably similar interests and values: we love qualitative research and deep stories of tech users and workers. We study tech policy and platforms with a critical lens, seeing them as embedded in and accentuating power hierarchies at a global scale.
🫶🏽 It was inspiring to swap origin stories between the 2 groups, learning how these groups navigated institutional challenges, and how students and scholars came together to build community and find joy in the work during times of crises (Covid! Austerity! Etc!)
💃Stay tuned for news about future collabs, including joint events and possible reception at the next big communication conference😙
The countdown begins! 🎉 Smart as a City drops May 5th!! And one week before, on April 27th, I’m hosting a launch event at UMass with some of my favorite thinkers in critical tech studies & ethnography. If you’re anywhere in Western Mass or on the East Coast, come join us. I promise that it will be thought-provoking AND fun in equal measure. Pre-order link in bio; use UCPSAVE30 to save 30%!
🌎 You’re all invited to the 6th Communication Department Annual Lecture featuring Prof Paula Chakravartty @pau_lachak , the James Weldon Professor of Media, Culture and Communication @mccnyu .
🇵🇸 Her talk is entitled “Palestine as Paradigm: Communicative Epistemology and Colonial Racial Violence”.
🫶🏽 Prof Paula Chakravartty is Co-Director of the NYU Critical Racial Anti-Colonial Lab and Editor of @cccjournal_ica . UMass is especially excited to welcome her as she’s formerly faculty @sbs_umass@umass .
🔥 Her critical scholarship and activism have been so inspirational to us at #GloTechLab.
👋🏼 There’s an online option for those who want to participate in this important and urgent discussion — and the homecoming of a wonderful colleague.
🇧🇷🇵🇭We’re looking to interview current and former media / democracy / development workers and discuss how they’ve worked thru foreign aid shocks in the past year.
🫶🏽 Our interview compares the civil society landscape in Brazil and the Philippines in terms of resilience and sustainability. Our project’s human-focus is especially keen to explore themes of worker wellbeing and activist burnout: How do media/development workers imagine democratic futures in their societies. How do they see themselves participating in political or civic life? Or have they grown disillusioned from both shocks and slow-burn of democratic backsliding in global context?
🙏 We hope y’all share this call for respondents far and wide and help us put together practical proposals pertaining to organizational sustainability as well as worker justice and movement-building in the Global South.
👋🏼 We wanna hear your story! Pls contact [email protected] / [email protected] / [email protected]!
🗺️ Prof Tommy Tse (U of Amsterdam) visits #GloTechLab for his talk “Global Africa as Method”. His multi-sited ethnographic work on African fashion traces formal and informal linkages in Africa-China fashion production, trade and consumption. His talk retells the social relationships of Cantonese wholesalers employing African designers, Nigerian traders setting trends in West African markets, and the young Kenyan consumers who customize Afro—chic with Chinese fast fashion.
🪢 This in-person public event is on March 6, Friday, 130pm in the Comm Hub, ILC, UMass Amherst.
GloTech’s research lead @burcubaykurt ’s new book is an ethnographic investigation into how smartness is received and negotiated by different communities in Kansas City, Missouri. Preorder your copies from U of California Press and other booksellers.
“Baykurt’s ethnography crackles with insight, exploring how flashy innovation and hollow promises of reinvention often sideline community wisdom and the real sources of urban inequity. This book is a stirring reminder that lasting justice requires valuing the people who understand their cities from the ground up.” -@ruha9
💫 At GloTech Lab, we’re all about building bridges with different centers and institutions, and creating intellectual partnerships around globally minded and community-driven approaches in media and technology research.
🌍 Part of our network-building initiative is finding ways to amplify Global South advocacies within “mainstream” Global North institutions. We’re proud we get to link up GloTech affiliate @thales.lelo ’s research with our colleagues at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center and share the latest collaborative projects on media and democracy @joncong .
More to come soon!
📸 Enjoying fall vibes @umass@sbs_umass is #GloTechLab’s 3rd annual cohort.
👋🏼 First we send regards to two GloTech OGs Nora Suren and Jane Pyo, who have moved on to new professorships in Boston and New Orleans respectively.
🙌🏾 We’re also excited to announce leadership changes. In our 3rd year, Seyram Avle takes over as GloTech Director, Martha Fuentes-Bautista as Associate Director, and Burcu Baykurt as Research Lead. Other GloTech faculty include Heesoo Jang, Wayne Xu and Jonathan Corpus Ong (on sabbatical).
🫶🏽 GloTech Graduate Fellows year 3 include Adrian Godboldt, JM Lanuza, Marco Trigoso, Jihye Kim, Chloe Morgado, Yelim Lee, Larrisa Miller, Yena Kang and Lizhen Zhao.
🍁 Our 3rd year thematic container is entitled “Techno-pasts and Presents”. More details of our reading group and speaker series coming soon 😚
🌍 Happening tomorrow: GloTech Lab presents “Made in Ethiopia” film screening and q&a with directors Xinyan Yu and Max Duncan.
🏗️ Made in Ethiopia is a documentary that follows 3 women whose lives are interconnected as plans for a massive Chinese industrial park in rural Ethiopia unfold. It’s a story of globalization and industrialization, as well as a story of cross -cultural communication and human connection.
👏 See you October 3, 1pm at UMass Amherst ILC s350.
In an era of political upheaval and online echo chambers, Jonathan Corpus Ong is on the frontlines of understanding how disinformation spreads—and why people create it. Ong has become one of the world’s leading voices on online disinformation, digital politics and global media ethics.
From interviewing paid trolls in the Philippines to advising social media companies and human rights groups, Ong brings an ethnographer’s eye to a space often dominated by quick condemnations. His approach is to listen first, then expose the systems and motivations behind harmful online campaigns. That means asking tough questions: Who hires trolls? How do they justify their work?—while never excusing unethical practices.
Ong’s insights have shaped tech platforms’ content policies and informed advocacy strategies. Through projects like the Global Technology for Social Justice Lab at UMass, he connects policymakers with researchers and organizers making a difference within their respective communities.
“GloTech Lab at UMass supports edgy research that troubles stereotypes about so-called heroes and villains of our digital world,” Ong says. “Building shared futures is not just about designing tools that scale up, but creating opportunities to slow down, listen, translate and redistribute voice.”
This post is part of an ongoing series showcasing how higher education fuels innovation, economic growth and global competitiveness in the commonwealth and beyond. See more examples of our research for the common good using the link in our bio.
