Doctoral Candidate, Political Science, 2007, University of Washington

Working dissertation title: Halfway Houses between Physical Reality and Imagined Space: Youth and the Generation of Political Consciousness Online

The central claim emerging from my research of several online communities is that for youth some locations on the internet serve as discursive communities and sites for cooperative action. Because the internet allows instantaneous communication across geographical space, these sites both facilitate and offer a location to observe the generation of community and development of political consciousness for the segment of society that will inherit political power. I am conducing participant-observer research in four online communities, collecting survey data, and coding social networking pages.

Dissertation Committee: Joel Migdal (Chair, Political Science/International Studies), Michael McCann (Political Science/Law, Societies & Justice), Philip Howard (Communication), Gina Neff (Communication)

Exam Fields: Comparative Politics, Public Law, International Relations