Hi there!

My name is Chelsea Butkowski, and I am an Assistant Professor of Data, Media, and Identity in the School of Communication at American University. I study how people use media technologies to represent themselves and their communities during times of rapid social and political change.

My research and teaching investigate intersections of digital media technologies and identity across human agency, cultural norms, and sociotechnical systems. I draw on a feminist approach, and my research questions call for a combination of qualitative and quantitative social scientific methods, including in-depth interviews, focus groups, content analysis, discourse analysis, and participatory research.

My current work focuses on the politics of digital identity from three interconnected perspectives: the performance, datafication, and infrastructure of identity online. Most recently, this has led me to projects about online political expression during elections and self-representation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

You can find my research published in a number of leading academic journals, including New Media & Society, Social Media + Society, Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, Feminist Media Studies, Visual Communication, and Communication, Culture & Critique, among others.

Prior to joining American University’s communication faculty, I served as a post-doctoral fellow in the Center on Digital Culture & Society in University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School of Communication. I am also currently a faculty affiliate of the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life at UNC Chapel Hill.

Feel free to contact me at butkowsk@american.edu. Copies of my CV are available upon request.