Expertise

Information interaction and retrieval

Education

PhD, Stanford University
MA, Stanford University
BA, Bates University

Biography

Daniel Kreiss is Professor, UNC School of Information and Library Science, principal researcher of the UNC Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life, and the Edgar Thomas Cato Distinguished Professor in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Kreiss has conducted foundational research analyzing how the Internet and platforms shape campaigning and the creation and dissemination of information, including journalism. Together with colleagues at the UNC Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life, Kreiss has also developed new theoretical frameworks for and conducted empirical research on the roles of social identities, especially race and ethnicity, in political communication as they intersect with the changing technological and media basis of public spheres. Kreiss has built upon the insights from this work to argue – both in scholarly venues and for public and policymaker audiences – for how platforms and public policy should create stronger democratic systems. This includes more robust protections for voting rights and political privacy, stronger content moderation processes to protect against hate speech, greater transparency and accountability over platform decision making, and secure data access for researchers.

Kreiss is the author of a number of books and academic articles, including the co-author of Power in Ideas: A Case-Based Argument for Taking Ideas Seriously in Political Communication Research (in press, Cambridge University Press), first author of Recoding the Boys’ Club: The Experiences and Future of Women in Political Technology (Oxford University Press, 2020), and author of Prototype Politics: Technology-Intensive Campaigning and the Data of Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Taking Our Country Back: The Crafting of Networked Politics from Howard Dean to Barack Obama (Oxford University Press, 2012).

Kreiss co-edits the Oxford University Press book series Journalism and Political Communication Unbound and is an associate editor of Political Communication.

Kreiss is an affiliated fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School and received a Ph.D. in Communication from Stanford University.

Prior to this academic work, Kreiss worked for a number of political and nonprofit organizations in New York City and San Francisco, and was an active political blogger during and after earning an M.A. in Communication (Journalism) from Stanford University in 2004.