Ethan Zuckerman
Ethan Zuckerman
Born1972 or 1973 (age 51–52)[1]
NationalityAmerican
Alma materWilliams College (B.A. 1993)
OccupationMedia scholar
Websiteethanzuckerman.com

Ethan Zuckerman (born 1973)[1] is an American media scholar, blogger, and Internet activist. He is the director of the MIT Center for Civic Media, Associate Professor of the Practice in Media Arts and Sciences at MIT[2] and the author of the book Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection, which won the Zócalo Book Prize.[3] His research addresses the use of technology and activism in civic media.[4]

Education

Zuckerman is a graduate of Williams College, where he received a B.A. in Philosophy in 1993.[5] He then spent a year on a Fulbright scholarship at the University of Legon, Ghana and the National Theatre of Ghana in Accra, where he studied ethnomusicology and percussion.[5]

Career

Zuckerman was one of the first staff members of Tripod.com, one of the first successful "dot com" enterprises, where he worked from 1994 to 1999. There, he was in charge of the design and the implementation of the website which, at that time, marketed content and services to recent college graduates. The business model of this website was exclusively based on advertising. After one of the website's major advertisers complained that one of their banner advertisements had appeared on a page that celebrated anal sex, Zuckerman imagined a way to associate an ad with a user’s page without putting it directly on the page. His solution was to open a new dedicated window with only the ad in it. The popup ad was born. While he claims having only written the code to open a new window, since then, he is considered as the inventor of the pop-up ad.[6]

In 2000, he founded Geekcorps[1] and 2004, Global Voices Online.[7]

He won the MIT Technology Review "Technology in the Service of Humanity" award in 2002 for his work on Geekcorps.[8] Ethan has been a senior researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, where he is also a long-time fellow. His work at the Berkman Center has included research into global media attention,[9][10] as well as the co-founding of Global Voices in collaboration with Rebecca MacKinnon. For some years he was also a contributing writer for Worldchanging.com, where he served as president of the board of directors.

In January 2007, he joined the inaugural Wikimedia Foundation Advisory Board.

In 2008, he coined the cute cat theory of digital activism.[citation needed]

In 2011, he was named by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of top global thinkers, in which he stated the Best idea is "The world isn't flat and globalization is only beginning, which means we have time to change what we're doing and get it right".[11] Also in September of that year, he became the director of the MIT Center for Civic Media.[12]

Zuckerman is an Open Society Global Board member, and also sits on the board of directors of Ushahidi,[13] Global Voices,[14] and the Ghanaian journalism training nonprofit, PenPlusBytes.[15]

He was interviewed in the 2015 web documentary about internet privacy, Do Not Track.[16]

On July 1, 2016, Zuckerman was appointed Associate Professor of the Practice in Media Arts and Sciences at MIT.[2]

Personal life

Zuckerman resides in Lanesborough, Massachusetts and has a son with Rachel Barenblat.

Works by Zuckerman

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Boutin, Paul (August 2000). "Visualize World Geeks". Wired. No. 8.08. Ethan Zuckerman ... the high-energy 27-year-old ..."
  2. ^ a b "Ethan Zuckerman Appointed Associate Professor of the Practice in Media Arts and Sciences". MIT Media Lab. July 1, 2016.
  3. ^ "Ethan Zuckerman Wins Zócalo's Fourth Annual Book Prize". Zócalo Public Square. April 3, 2014.
  4. ^ "Defining Civic Media -The Open Mind with Alexander Heffner".
  5. ^ a b "Ethan Zuckerman". Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
  6. ^ Zuckerman, Ethan (August 14, 2014). "The Internet's Original Sin: It's not too late to ditch the ad-based business model and build a better web". The Atlantic. Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  7. ^ Zuckerman, Ethan. "Ethan Zuckerman | Berkman Center". Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Retrieved April 22, 2006.
  8. ^ "2002 TR100". Retrieved April 16, 2012.
  9. ^ Zuckerman, E. (2004). "Global Attention Profiles - A Working Paper: First Steps Towards a Quantitative Approach to the Study of Media Attention". doi:10.2139/ssrn.487943. ((cite journal)): Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  10. ^ Zuckerman, E. (2007). "Meet the bridgebloggers". Public Choice. 134: 47–65. doi:10.1007/s11127-007-9200-y.
  11. ^ "The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers". Foreign Policy. November 28, 2011. Archived from the original on April 16, 2012. Retrieved April 14, 2012. ((cite web)): Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  12. ^ "Ethan Zuckerman, cyberscholar and activist, to lead MIT Center for Civic Media,". MIT News. June 30, 2011. Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  13. ^ "Board of Directors". ushahidi.com. Archived from the original on April 19, 2012. Retrieved April 16, 2012. ((cite web)): Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  14. ^ "Board of Directors". globalvoices.org. Retrieved April 16, 2012.
  15. ^ "About Penplusbytes: Board of Directors". penplusbytes.org. Retrieved April 16, 2012.
  16. ^ Davis, Nicola (April 14, 2015). "Do Not Track: an online, interactive documentary about who's watching you". The Guardian. Retrieved April 15, 2015.

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ethan Zuckerman.

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