Alexander Halavais
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Mail code: 3051Campus: West
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Alexander Halavais is a researcher, author, and creator, interested in the ways in which automation, datafication, and artificial intelligence change the nature of learning and allow for new forms of creativity, collaboration, and autonomy. He is an Associate Professor in the School of Social & Behavioral Sciences at Arizona State University, where he directs the Master’s in Social Data Science. The second edition of his Search Engine Society was published in 2017, and he has published more than fifty articles and book chapters on the relationship of emerging technologies to social change. He is working on an introduction to information studies to be published by Polity in 2025 among other projects.
But wait, there’s more!
Previously, he taught in the MS in Interactive Media program at Quinnipiac University and directed masters programs in the School of Informatics at the University at Buffalo (SUNY). He formerly served as president of the Association of Internet Researchers, worked with the Digital Media and Learning Hub based at the University of California Humanities Research Institute, and has had extensive experience in developing data strategies and intelligence with organizations in government, non-profits, and industry. At ASU he is affiliated with the Institute for Social Science Research, the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics, and the School for the Future of Innovation in Society, and is external faculty in the Department of Public and Applied Humanities at the University of Arizona. He received a PhD in Communications from the University of Washington, and a BA in Political Science from the University of California at Irvine.
He has provided expert commentary for dozens of newspapers and magazines around the world, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Wired, The Times of London, and Asahi Shimbun, and has been a discussant on television and radio programs in the US, Canada, Australia, Austria, Turkey, and Russia. His teaching was featured in Time, and interviews have been published in the Washington Post and Fast Company.
His perfect day would be spent with his partner, two children, and Pax the Mastiff, and would include a nice walk, a great meal, a curvy drive in a fast car, and a cold rum cocktail on a warm beach with a nice breeze and a good book. His dream is to someday start a school for misfits and misfitting.
- Ph.D. Communications, University of Washington 2001
- B.A. Political Science, University of California-Irvine 1993
Interested in the ways in which platforms, algorithms, and data structures shape and change social interaction, and especially how they affect and are affected by the formation of communities for learning and political action.
Halavais, A. (2017). Search engine society, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press. First edition published in Japanese by Seidosha Press (trans. A. Tabata, 2010), and in Polish by Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN (trans. T. Płudowski, 2012).
Halavais, A. (2016). The blogophere and its problems: Web 2.0 undermining civic webspaces. First Monday, 21(6), a. 11. http://dx.doi.org/10.5210/fm.v21i6.6788
Halavais, A. (2016). Computer-supported collaborative learning. In K. Bruhn Jensen and R. T. Craig (Eds.), International encyclopedia of communication theory and philosophy. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.
Halavais, A. (2015). Social search. In P.H. Ang and R. Mansfield (Eds.), International encyclopedia of digital communications and society. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.
Halavais, A. (2015). Bigger sociological imaginations: Framing big social data theory and methods. Information, Communication, & Society, 18(5), 583-594.
Kwon, K. H., Halavais, A. & Havener, S. (2015). Tweeting badges: User motivations for displaying achievement in publicly networked environments. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 18(2), 93-100.
Halavais, A. (2014). The Calibans at night. In E. Finn (Ed.), Knowledge systems, Future of the book, vol. 2 (pp. 7-12). Tempe: Arizona State University.
Halavais, A. & Garrido, M. (2014). Twitter as the people’s microphone: Emergence of authorities during protest tweeting. In M. McCaughey (Ed.), Cyberactivism on the participatory web (pp. 117-139). London: Routledge.
Halavais, A., Kwon, K.H., Havener, S. & Striker, J. (2014). Badges of friendship: Social influence and badge acquisition on Stack Overflow,” Proceedings of the 47th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences.
Halavais, A. (2013). Home made big data‽ Challenges and opportunities for participatory social research. First Monday, 18(10), a. 7.
Halavais, A. (2013). Teaching and learning with social media. In T. Senft & J. Hunsinger, Routledge handbook of social media (pp. 93-106). London: Routledge.
Halavais, A. (2013). Search and networked attention. In J. Hartley, J. Burgess, & A. Bruns (Eds.), A companion to new media dynamics (pp. 249-260). New York: Wiley-Blackwell.
Halavais, A. (2013). And who Is Demosthenes? In. D. E. Wittkower & L. Rush (Eds.), Ender’s Game and philosophy (pp. 125-132). Chicago: Open Court.
Halavais, A. (2013). Structure of Twitter: Social and technical. In K. Weller, A. Bruns, J. Burgess, & M. Mahrt (Eds.), Twitter and society (pp. 29-42). New York: Peter Lang.
Halavais, A. (2012). A genealogy of badges: Inherited meaning and monstrous moral hybrids. Information, Communication, and Society, 15(3), 354-373.
Halavais, A. (2012). Blogging as a Free Frame of Reference. In A. Delwiche & J. Jacobs Henderson (Eds.), The participatory cultures handbook (pp. 109-119). London: Routledge.
Halavais, A. (2011). Open up online research. Nature, 480(8 December), 174-175.
Halavais, A. (2011). Blogging course texts: Enhancing our traditional use of textual materials. In T. Scholz, Learning through digital media: Experiments in technology and pedagogy (pp. 17-26). New York: Institute for Distributed Creativity.
Halavais, A. (2011). Para achar agulha no palheiro (To find a needle in a haystack). In S. Fragoso (Ed. and Trans.), Métodos de pesquisa para internet (Internet research methods; pp. 11-16). Porto Alegre: Editora Sulina.
Halavais, A. (2010). The evolution of US white nationalism on the web. In N. Brügger (Ed.), Web history (pp. 83-104). New York: Peter Lang.
Halavais, A. (2009). Do dugg diggers Digg diligently? Feedback as motivation in collaborative moderation systems. Information, Communication, and Society, 12(3), 444-459.
Cheong, P. H., Halavais, A. & Kwon, K. H. (2008). The chronicles of me: Understanding blogging as a religious practice. Journal of Media and Religion, 7.
Halavais, A. (2008). The hyperlink as organizing principle. In J. Turow & L. Tsui (Eds.), The hyperlinked society: Questioning connections in the digital age (pp. 39-55). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Halavais, A. & Lackaff, D. (2008). An analysis of topical coverage of Wikipedia. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(2), 429-440.
Spratt, M. Bullock, C. F., Baldasty, G., Clark, F., Halavais, A., McCluskey, M. & Schrenk, S. (2007). News, race, and the status quo: The case of Emmett Louis Till. Howard Journal of Communications, 18(2), 169-162.
Halavais, A. (2007). Convergence of newspaper coverage of US presidential elections: 1992-2000. In P. Napoli (Ed.), Media diversity and localism: Meaning and metrics (pp. 97-112). Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Lin, J., Halavais, A. & Zhang, B. (2007). The blog network in America: Blogs as indicators of relationships among US cities. Connections, 27(2), 15-23.
Halavais, A. (2006). Scholarly blogging: Moving toward the visible college. In A. Bruns & J. Jacobs (Eds.), Uses of blogs (pp. 117-126). New York: Peter Lang.
Halavais, A. (2006). Weblogs and collaborative web publishing as learning spaces. In J. Weiss, J. Nolan, J. Hunsinger, & P. Trifonas (Eds.), International handbook of virtual learning environments ( v. 4, pp. 1215-1235). Amsterdam: Springer.
Halavais, A. (2006). Blogs and the “social weather.” In D. Satish & K. Rajesh Prabhakar (Eds.), Blogs: Emerging communication media. Hyderabad: The ICFAI University Press.
Lin, J. & Halavais, A. (2006). Geographical distribution of weblogs in the United States. Webology, 3(4).
Halavais, A. (2005). Social informatics: Beyond emergence. Bulletin of American Society for Information Science and Technology, 31(5).
Halavais, A. (2005). Small pornographies, ACM SIGGROUP Bulletin, 25(2), 19-22.
Halavais, A. (Ed., 2005). Cyberporn & society. Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt Publishing.
Halavais, A. & Lin, J. (2004). Mapping the blogosphere in America, Blogging Ecosystem Workshop, Thirteenth International World Wide Web Conference, New York, May.
Garrido, M. & Halavais, A. (2003). Mapping networks of support for the Zapatista movement. In M. McCaughey & M. D. Ayers (Eds.), Cyberactivism: Online activism in theory and practice (pp. 165-184). London: Routledge.
Halavais, A. (2002). Do-it-yourself journalism. The web as news after September 11. Washington, Pew Internet and American Life Project.
Halavais, A. (2000). National borders on the world wide web. New Media & Society, 2(1), 7-28. Reprinted as a supplemental reading for McQuail’s Mass Communication Theory.
Courses
2025 Spring
Course Number | Course Title |
---|---|
CMN 593 | Applied Project |
CMN 590 | Reading and Conference |
2024 Fall
Course Number | Course Title |
---|---|
SDS 590 | Reading and Conference |
SDS 595 | Continuing Registration |
SDS 595 | Continuing Registration |
SDS 595 | Continuing Registration |
SDS 595 | Continuing Registration |
2024 Spring
Course Number | Course Title |
---|---|
CMN 593 | Applied Project |
CMN 590 | Reading and Conference |
STC 595 | Continuing Registration |
STC 595 | Continuing Registration |
STC 510 | Data Wrangling |
STC 510 | Data Wrangling |
2023 Fall
Course Number | Course Title |
---|---|
STC 590 | Reading and Conference |
STC 595 | Continuing Registration |
STC 595 | Continuing Registration |
STC 593 | Applied Project |
STC 537 | Technologies of Community |
STC 537 | Technologies of Community |
2023 Summer
Course Number | Course Title |
---|---|
STC 595 | Continuing Registration |
STC 512 | Data, Places, People & Things |
STC 512 | Data, Places, People & Things |
STC 539 | Social Search and Filtering |
STC 539 | Social Search and Filtering |
2023 Spring
Course Number | Course Title |
---|---|
CMN 593 | Applied Project |
STC 593 | Applied Project |
CMN 590 | Reading and Conference |
STC 595 | Continuing Registration |
STC 595 | Continuing Registration |
STC 510 | Data Wrangling |
STC 510 | Data Wrangling |
STC 528 | Communicating Data Science |
STC 528 | Communicating Data Science |
2022 Fall
Course Number | Course Title |
---|---|
STC 590 | Reading and Conference |
STC 595 | Continuing Registration |
STC 595 | Continuing Registration |
STC 593 | Applied Project |
STC 536 | Networked Publics |
STC 536 | Networked Publics |
STC 537 | Technologies of Community |
STC 537 | Technologies of Community |
2022 Summer
Course Number | Course Title |
---|---|
STC 595 | Continuing Registration |
STC 512 | Data, Places, People & Things |
STC 512 | Data, Places, People & Things |
STC 539 | Social Search and Filtering |
STC 539 | Social Search and Filtering |
2022 Spring
Course Number | Course Title |
---|---|
CMN 593 | Applied Project |
STC 593 | Applied Project |
CMN 590 | Reading and Conference |
STC 595 | Continuing Registration |
STC 595 | Continuing Registration |
STC 510 | Data Wrangling |
STC 510 | Data Wrangling |
2021 Fall
Course Number | Course Title |
---|---|
STC 590 | Reading and Conference |
STC 595 | Continuing Registration |
STC 595 | Continuing Registration |
STC 593 | Applied Project |
STC 536 | Networked Publics |
STC 536 | Networked Publics |
STC 537 | Technologies of Community |
STC 537 | Technologies of Community |
2021 Summer
Course Number | Course Title |
---|---|
STC 595 | Continuing Registration |
2021 Spring
Course Number | Course Title |
---|---|
CMN 593 | Applied Project |
STC 593 | Applied Project |
CMN 590 | Reading and Conference |
STC 595 | Continuing Registration |
STC 595 | Continuing Registration |
STC 510 | Data Wrangling |
POS 493 | Honors Thesis |
2020 Fall
Course Number | Course Title |
---|---|
STC 590 | Reading and Conference |
STC 595 | Continuing Registration |
STC 595 | Continuing Registration |
STC 593 | Applied Project |
POS 374 | Internet Cultures and Politics |
SBS 374 | Internet Cultures and Politics |
SOC 374 | Internet Cultures and Politics |
POS 492 | Honors Directed Study |
2020 Summer
Course Number | Course Title |
---|---|
STC 595 | Continuing Registration |
2020 Spring
Course Number | Course Title |
---|---|
CMN 593 | Applied Project |
STC 593 | Applied Project |
CMN 590 | Reading and Conference |
STC 595 | Continuing Registration |
STC 595 | Continuing Registration |
POS 374 | Internet Cultures and Politics |
SBS 374 | Internet Cultures and Politics |
SOC 374 | Internet Cultures and Politics |
2019 Fall
Course Number | Course Title |
---|---|
STC 590 | Reading and Conference |
STC 595 | Continuing Registration |
STC 595 | Continuing Registration |
CMN 557 | Communication and Technology |
STC 593 | Applied Project |
Arizona State University (2012 - Present)
Quinnipiac University (2006-2012)
State University of New York at Buffao (2001-2006)
- MA in Social Technologies, Director (2015, 2016 - Present)
- Internet History, Editorial Board (2016 - Present)
- Information, Communication, and Society, Editorial Board (2010 - Present)
- New Media & Society, Editorial Board (2004 - Present)
- Association of Internet Researchers, President (2011 - 2013)
- Association of Internet Researchers, Executive Committee (2005 - 2015)