Robert W Gehl

About

I am: Ontario Research Chair of Digital Governance for Social Justice at York University, and an alumnus of the Fulbright Canada Research Chair program. I'm also an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, Media, and Film at the University of Calgary.

I teach: critical studies of communication technology, new media theory, software studies, basic Web design, and political economy of communication.I am currently looking for grad students who want to study alternative social media and Internet cultures. Please contact me!

I research: network cultures and technologies, manipulative communication, alternative social media, and the Dark Web.

My books: Social Engineering (2022, MIT Press), co-authored with Sean Lawson, takes up hacker social engineering as a tool to pick apart the past century of manipulative communication, from the early days of public relations to our current time of trolling and misinformation. Weaving the Dark Web (2018, MIT Press), offers a history and sociology of Freenet, Tor, and I2P. Reverse Engineering Social Media (2014, Temple University Press), explores the architecture and political economy of social media. Winner of the 2015 Association of Internet Researchers Nancy Baym Award. Socialbots and Their Friends (2016, Routledge), is a co-edited collection on socialbots.

Academic publications: in Media, Culture and Society, New Media and Society, Social Media and Society, Communication Theory, Social Text, and more.

Journalism/Op-Eds/Essays: My writing has appeared in MacLean's, The Toronto Star, The Conversation, The Week, Hack_Curio, The New Inquiry, Real Life, The Salt Lake Tribune, and Culture Digitally. You can also see more of my writing on my fancy "weblog."

Media appearances: in WIRED, Radio New Zealand, Forbes, The Atlantic, CBC, Deutschlandradio, LA Times, MSNBC, NPR, Congressional Quarterly, San Francisco Weekly, and The Salt Lake Tribune. You can see more of my media appearances here.