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Below is a curated list of university affiliated institutes and graduate programs:

The Annenberg Innovation Lab (AnnLab) The Annenberg Innovation Lab (AnnLab) is a curious, creative and committed Think & Do Tank helping media and technology to work for humans — not against us. Our collaborative practice is imaginative, rigorous and impact-oriented, and revolves around diverse scholars and practitioners working together to address complex problems and opportunities at the dynamic intersections of media, technology, culture and society.

Center for an Informed Public We have assembled world-class researchers, labs, thought leaders, and practitioners to translate research about misinformation and disinformation into policy, technology design, curriculum development, and public engagement. We want to shorten the cycle between research and implementation. We do this through our strong network of urban and rural libraries, national network of educators, and institutional partners. Our nonpartisan Center brings together diverse voices from across industry, government, nonprofits, other institutions, as well as those from communities and populations typically underrepresented in research and practice in this field.

Center for Information Technology and Society CITS is a vibrant and effective network of scholars dedicated to interdisciplinary research and education that seeks to understand and help shape the complex development, use, and social effects of information technologies. We foster cutting edge research across engineering, social sciences, and humanities through dynamic connections with academia, industry, and government.

Center for News Literacy The Center for News Literacy at Stony Brook University is committed to teaching students how to use critical thinking skills to judge the reliability and credibility of news reports and news sources. It is the only center of its kind in the United States. What Is News Literacy? News Literacy is a curriculum developed at Stony Brook University in New York over the past decade. It is designed to help students develop critical thinking skills in order to judge the reliability and credibility of information, whether it comes via print, television or the Internet.

Center for Study of Media, Communications and Power The Centre for the Study of Media, Communication and Power explores how news provision, political communication, public discourse, civic engagement and media power are changing in the digital age. Through empirical research, it informs academic and public policy debates and civic society responses, in order to help promote diversity, fairness, transparency and accountability in media and communication.

Center for Social Media and Politics Through cutting-edge research, NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics works to understand politics, inform public policy, and strengthen democracy in the digital age. Our goals: 1) Conduct rigorous, innovative research to better understand politics in the digital age. 2) Inform public policy to strengthen democracy. 3)Train the next generation of scholars.

Centre for Responsible Technology We are independent; collaborative; non-partisan and research driven, a bridge between civil society, unions, academics, government, responsible businesses and responsible investors. We will advocate for governments and technology companies to address the imbalance of power and knowledge between individuals and communities and technology.

Citizens and Technology Lab The Citizens and Technology (CAT) Lab at Cornell University works with online communities to study the effects of technology on the public interest. We envision a world where digital power is guided by evidence and accountable to the public.

Civic A.I. Lab The Civic A.I. Lab is a research laboratory at the Khoury College of Computer Science at Northeastern University that: (1) studies real world problems involving people, governments, worker collectives, and NGOs; (2) uses human centered design to create novel computational systems that address these problems to construct improved societies. Our Civic A.I. research especially works within the areas of gig work, and disinformation.

Computational Propaganda Research Project (COMPROP) This project enables a new team of social and information scientists to investigate the impact of automated scripts, commonly called bots, on social media. We study both the bot scripts and the people making such bots, and then work with computer scientists to improve the way we catch and stop such bots. Experience suggests that political bots are most likely to appear during an international crisis, and are usually designed to promote the interests of a government in trouble. Political actors have used bots to manipulate conversations, demobilize opposition, and generate false support on popular sites like Twitter and Facebook from the U.S. as well as Sina Weibo from China.

Content Policy & Society Lab The Content Policy and Social Lab is an initiative of the Program on Democracy and the Internet at the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, and the Cyber Policy Center based at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the university’s hub for the study of international affairs. Among the Content Policy and Society Lab’s first goals is to create a space for different stakeholders to exchange information and collaborate. The CPSL will host a workshop series, featuring corporate, civil society, and government actors who will present case studies of content policy and governance challenges they faced, and the solutions they explored.

Collaboratorium for Social Media and Online Behavioral Studies (COSMOS) At COSMOS, we are studying various aspects of social media and online behavior – the good, bad and the ugly. Research at COSMOS has made contributions to computational social network analysis and advanced the studies in social cyber security, cyber campaign coordination, identifying powerful actors and groups, disinformation dissemination across social media, cyber threat monitoring, social-cyber forensics, health informatics, data mining, and privacy. COSMOS has developed publicly available social media mining tools, Blogtrackers and YouTubeTracker, used during the NATO’s military exercises. COSMOS participates in the national Tech Innovation Hub launched by the U.S. Department of State’s Global Engagement Center to defeat foreign based propaganda.

Cyberlaw Clinic The Cyberlaw Clinic, based at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, provides high-quality, pro-bono legal services to appropriate clients on issues relating to the Internet, new technology, and intellectual property.

Cybersecurity for Democracy Enables participants to contribute ads they see on their news feed. We use traditional cybersecurity methods to evaluate vulnerabilities of online platforms that are used to spread misinformation. Our focus is on systems, revealing the ways that online sites leave themselves open to misinformation attacks. We then develop mitigation strategies to improve online security, working with advocates, policy makers, and platforms.

Digital Civil Society Lab Our approach is multi-disciplinary, cross-sectoral, and global in scope. We research the challenges and opportunities that digital infrastructures, software, and hardware present to civil society and its building blocks including freedom of assembly, association, speech and privacy. We develop collaborations between the social sector, scholars and policy makers to support a thriving and independent digital civil society. We advance innovative teaching opportunities for practitioners and students to understand and imagine solutions to civil society’s challenges in a digitally dependent world.

Digital Media Research Center The QUT Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC) conducts world-leading communication, media, and law research for a flourishing digital society. We help address local, national and global challenges at the forefront of digital transformation. Programs include Transforming Media Industries, Digital Publics, Computational Communication and Culture, Governing Digital Societies, and Digital Inclusion and Participation.

Digital Polarization Initiative (DigiPo) ADP’s national effort to build student civic, information and web literacy by having students participate in a broad, cross-institutional project to fact-check, annotate, and provide context to the different news stories that show up in our Twitter and Facebook feeds. DigiPo is spearheaded by ADP’s inaugural Civic Fellow Mike Caulfield of Washington State University Vancouver.

Digital Public Square By building new platforms and providing new and innovative tools designed to increase digital spaces for free expression, open political dialogue, and engagement where citizen participation and civil society is threatened, the Digital Public Square project seeks to enable agoras where the largest possible number of active participants can debate, share, and form opinions.

The Disinformation Project at the Communication School  The Disinformation Project at the School of Communication is a SSHRC funded research that examines fake news discourses on Canadian news media and social media. There are four objectives behind conducting this study. -To understand how Canadian journalists define disinformation and fake news and identify the way they deal with this phenomenon. -To explore fake news coverage and its scope by categorizing Canadian news stories into types using news values theory. -To find the major topics discussed on Canadian news media and social media posts that reference fake news, disinformation, misinformation, and false news by partly using machine learning methods. To provide a clearer conceptualization and operationalization of disinformation in order to expand existing theories and methodologies based on the examination of previous research and the coding of news stories and social media posts.

Global Digital Policy Incubator The mission of the Global Digital Policy Incubator at the Stanford Cyber Policy Center is to inspire policy and governance innovations that reinforce democratic values, universal human rights, and the rule of law in the digital realm. Its purpose is to serve as a collaboration hub for the development of norms, guidelines, and laws that enhance freedom, security, and trust in the global digital ecosystem. The bottom line question that guides this initiative: How do we help governments and private sector technology companies establish norms, policies, and processes that allow citizens and society to reap the upside benefits of technology for economic development and the exercise of universal human rights, while protecting against the downside risks?

Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Initiative The mission of HAI is to advance AI research, education, policy and practice to improve the human condition. Led by faculty from multiple departments across Stanford, research focuses on developing AI technologies inspired by human intelligence; studying, forecasting and guiding the human and societal impact of AI; and designing and creating AI applications that augment human capabilities. Through the education work of the institute, students and leaders at all stages gain a range of AI fundamentals and perspectives. At the same time, the policy work of HAI fosters regional and national discussions that lead to direct legislative impact.

Human-Centered Computing PhD Program The objective of the Doctorate of Philosophy (Ph.D.) Human-Centered Computing (HCC) degree program is to prepare our graduates for advanced research positions in industry and the academy.

Imagining the Internet Society The Imagining the Internet Center’s mission is to explore and provide insights into emerging network innovations, global development, dynamics, diffusion and governance. Its research holds a mirror to humanity’s use of communications technologies, informs policy development, exposes potential futures and provides a historic record. It works to illuminate issues in order to serve the greater good, making its work public, free and open. The Imagining the Internet Center sponsors work that brings people together to share their visions for the future of communications and the future of the world.

Information Futures Lab Brown University School of Public Health is announcing the creation of its Information Futures Lab. The Lab investigates the harms of misinformation, data deficits, outdated communications practices and other barriers to meeting the information needs of communities. It brings together researchers and practitioners across fields to co-design, implement and evaluate solutions, one pilot at a time.

Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure We’re imagining, studying, and building public spaces and public goods on the internet. The Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure studies, imagines and builds a new, more resilient Internet for the public good; an Internet guided by the values of users and their communities rather than those of corporations and investors. At iDPI, we are building an internet full of spaces that are intentionally public, with economics and governance driven by their users. We aim to accomplish this by learning from successful examples of user-driven and user-governed online spaces as well as experimentations in building community-driven spaces at a small scale.

Institute for Data, Democracy, and Politics In the heart of the nation’s capital, IDDP brings together top researchers from across academic disciplines, works side-by-side with and informs journalists from leading media outlets, advises and helps agenda set with policymakers in the U.S. and Europe, and engages with a variety of organizations that have significant societal influence and reach.

Institute for Data Exploration and Applications (IDEA) We increasingly live in a data-driven, web-enabled, supercomputer-powered, globally interconnected world, and this poses significant new challenges to scientists and engineers throughout all of their disciplines. Attacking these problems requires new technologies for sensing the environment, collecting and analyzing this data, using it to simulate engineered, biological and social systems, and applying these results to provide effectors, physical or cyber, that can help solve critical global challenges. The Rensselaer IDEA enables research to access such technologies via the development of critical computational methodologies including data-intensive supercomputing, large-scale agent-based simulation, and cognitive computing technologies.

Institute for Rebooting Social Media We are a three-year research initiative addressing social media’s most urgent problems, including misinformation, privacy breaches, harassment, and content governance. By working with academia, industry, and the public, we hope to promote and create healthier online ecosystems.

Internet Observatory – Cyber Policy Center The Stanford Internet Observatory is a cross-disciplinary program of research, teaching and policy engagement for the study of abuse in current information technologies, with a focus on social media. Under the program direction of computer security expert Alex Stamos, the Observatory was created to learn about the abuse of the internet in real time, to develop a novel curriculum on trust and safety that is a first in computer science, and to translate our research discoveries into training and policy innovations for the public good.

Markkula Center for Applied Ethics (Internet Ethics Department Located in the Silicon Valley, the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics brings the traditions of ethical thinking to bear on real world problems. Beyond a full range of events, grants, and fellowships for the Santa Clara University Community, the Center also serves professionals in fields from business to health care, from government to the social sector, providing innovative approaches to problems from fake news to privacy protection. Through our website and international collaborations, we also bring ethical decision making resources to the wider world.

The Media Manipulation Casebook The Media Manipulation Casebook is a digital research platform linking together theory, methods, and practice for mapping media manipulation and disinformation campaigns. This resource is intended for researchers, journalists, technologists, policymakers, educators, and civil society organizers who want to learn about detecting, documenting, describing, and debunking misinformation, disinformation, and media manipulation.

Media, Technology and Democracy Masters program Internet surveillance, disinformation campaigns, and manipulation of digital media are some of the greatest threats to democracy today. To counter those threats, and to support free and equitable societies, organizations need strategic thinkers with expertise in communications, technology, and policy. The new American University School of Communication MA in Media, Technology & Democracy will give you the tools you need to examine complex social problems, analyze emerging trends in media and technology, and develop and evaluate policy.

Misinformation Review Journal The HKS Misinformation Review is a new format of peer-reviewed, scholarly publication. Content is produced and “fast-reviewed” by misinformation scientists and scholars, released under open access licensing, and geared towards emphasizing real-world implications. All content is targeted towards a specialized audience of researchers, journalists, fact checkers, educators, policy makers, and other practitioners working in the information, media, and platform landscape.

Network Contagion Research Institute These are an independent, data-driven, evidence-based series of reports that the NCRI and select partners release regarding the spread of hostile ideological content. One of the main goals of these reports is to handle sensitive social issues around the spread of ideology in an objective and data driven way. We aim to facilitate honest conversations about the spread of political deception, hate and manipulation, especially on social media.

News Integrity Initiative The initiative refocused its work on improving diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices in the news business. The goal was to better integrate journalists of color into the media landscape and promote high-quality civic content that resonates with historically marginalized communities.

News Quality Initiative (NewsQ) NewsQ is an initiative of the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and supported by Hacks/Hackers. NewsQ seeks to elevate quality journalism when algorithms rank and recommend news articles online.

Nieman Foundation for Journalism The Nieman Foundation houses a dynamic set of initiatives to promote and elevate the standards of journalism and educate and support those poised to make important contributions to its future. We do this through our fellowship programs; our publications, online and in-print; and programming that convenes some of the leading thinkers of our time.

Observatory on Social Media The Observatory on Social Media (OSoMe, pronounced awe•some) is a joint project of the Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research (CNetS) at the Luddy School, the Media School, and the Network Science Institute (IUNI) at Indiana University. OSoMe unites data scientists and journalists in studying the role of media and technology in society, and building tools to analyze and counter disinformation and manipulation on social media.

Platform Cooperativism Consortium The Platform Cooperativism Consortium (PCC) is a hub for research, community building, and advocacy for co-ops that make the digital transition. From dating to search, extractive platforms are reaching into every corner of life, collecting data along the way to be controlled only by a tiny number of people. Internet giants collect and control innumerable data points about users, and in exchange, offer zero transparency for how this information is used, who it is sold to, and for what purpose. Despite the fortunes made by many investors and creators of extractive platforms, the users who give value to these apps through their data don’t have a say about what happens on them. Platform co-ops give stakeholders a say in what happens on the platforms.

Polarization and Extremism Research Lab PERIL brings the resources and expertise of the university sector to bear on the pressing problem of growing youth polarization and extremist radicalization. Through partnerships, funded research and evaluations, and out-of-the-box design thinking, PERIL empirically tests scalable research, intervention, and public education ideas to reduce rising polarization and hate.

Programme on Democracy and Technology Since 2012, the Programme on Democracy & Technology has been investigating the use of algorithms, automation, and computational propaganda in public life. Our goal is to use rigorous social science and computational methods to increase civic engagement and promote democratic values. We use qualitative, comparative, quantitative and computational methods, and often work with academics, journalists, independent investigators, and policy makers to identify new problems and craft new research questions. We work with many kinds of data, do international fieldwork, and engage in “real-time” social and information science, actively disseminating our findings to journalists, industry, policy makers, and the interested public.

Program on Platform Regulation The Program on Platform Regulation focuses on current or emerging law governing Internet platforms, with an emphasis on laws’ consequences for the rights and interests of Internet users and the public.

Public Interest Tech Lab  We help shape the future of technology and society to advance equity, expand opportunity and protect basic rights and liberties. Three pillars guide the public interest tech lab’s work to create a future where justice, accountability and equity are at the forefront of technological and societal change: endeavor, equip and connect.

School of Information Center for Social Media Accountability The University of Michigan Center for Social Media Responsibility (CSMR) addresses the negative effects of broad access to the means of public communication, while amplifying positive effects. Technologists at social media companies (product managers, designers, and engineers) are the day-to-day policymakers of today’s social media landscape. CSMR, established in 2018, articulates principles and creates metrics and tools that empower technologists to set responsible policy. We are devoted to understanding how the contemporary information environment is influencing the public and what we can do about it. Our mission is to help media platforms meet their public responsibilities.

Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy Research Initiatives include: disinformation, tech policy, local news, public interest journalism, public interest technology, behavioral decision science. The Shorenstein Center addresses the spread and impacts of misinformation, disinformation, and media manipulation through a range of research-based approaches. We study the causes of disinformation, how it spreads through online and offline channels, why people are susceptible to believing bad information, and successful strategies for mitigating its impact.

Social Interaction Lab  The Social Interaction Lab is an interdisciplinary research hub that combines psychology, communication, computing, and design to understand how people interact with technology, a field known as human-computer interaction (HCI). We are particularly interested in studying technologies that are social, such as social media, mobile-health apps, and multiplayer games. Many of our current projects revolve around technology and mental health, including the development of a mobile app to support women in STEM and the use of bots to facilitate social support in virtual environments.

Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project The ACLU’s Project on Speech, Privacy, and Technology (SPT) is dedicated to protecting and expanding the First Amendment freedoms of expression, association, and inquiry; expanding the right to privacy and increasing the control that individuals have over their personal information; and ensuring that civil liberties are enhanced rather than compromised by new advances in science and technology.

The Technology & Social Change Group (TASCHA) The Technology & Social Change Group (TASCHA) is a center for multidisciplinary research at the UW Information School that explores the complex relationship between digital technologies and society, and develops new models of digital engagement that advance community interests. We have a particular focus on underrepresented and marginalized groups, and fostering individual and community agency.

Tow Center for Digital Journalism Our team of researchers examines digital journalism’s industry-wide economic trends, its cultural shifts, and its relationship with the broader, constantly changing world of technology. Operating as an institute within Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, the center provides journalists with the skills and knowledge to lead the future of digital journalism and serves as a research and development center for the profession as a whole.