Dr. Joan Donovan

Member

Joan Donovan, PhD, is an assistant professor of journalism and emerging media studies at Boston University. Dr. Donovan leads the field in examining internet and technology studies, online extremism, media manipulation, and disinformation campaigns. She is the founder of The Critical Internet Studies Institute, a nonprofit based in Boston that advocates for a public interest internet.

Dr. Donovan’s research explores how media manipulation is a means to control public conversation, derail democracy, and disrupt society. She has testified to Congress on these topics, and is the co-author of Meme Wars: The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy in America. Dr. Donovan received her Ph.D. in Sociology and Science Studies from the University of California San Diego, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the UCLA Institute for Society and Genetics, where she studied white supremacists’ use of DNA ancestry tests, social movements, and technology.

Dr. Donovan was herself a whistleblower in 2023, exposing collusion between Meta and Harvard University.