Danah boyd

{{Infobox scientist

| name = danah boyd

| image = dboyd-3.jpg

| birth_name = Danah Michele Mattas

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1977|11|24}}

| birth_place = Altoona, Pennsylvania, U.S.

| spouse = Gilad Lotan{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/dining/27text.html|title = Play with Your Food, Just Don't Text!|newspaper = The New York Times|date = May 26, 2009|last1 = Rimer|first1 = Sara}}

| other_names =

| known_for = Commentary on sociality, identity, and culture among youth on social networks{{Cite book | last1 = Heer | first1 = J. | last2 = boyd | first2 = d. | doi = 10.1109/INFOVIS.2005.39 | chapter = Vizster: Visualizing Online Social Networks | title = Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization (INFOVIS'05) | pages = 5 | year = 2005 | isbn = 978-0-7803-9464-3 | s2cid = 5876116 }}

| field = Social media

| workplaces = {{plainlist|

| education = {{plainlist|

| thesis_title = Taken out of context: American teen sociality in networked publics

| thesis_year = 2008

| thesis_url = http://oskicat.berkeley.edu/search~S1?/e308t+2008+1093

| doctoral_advisor = {{plainlist|

Peter Lyman
Mizuko Ito}}

| website = {{plainlist|

{{URL|www.danah.org}}}}

| awards = Technology Review TR35 Young Innovators 2010MIT (2010). [http://www.technologyreview.com/TR35/Profile.aspx?TRID=948 2010 Young Innovators under 35, Danah Boyd, 32, Microsoft Research: Shaping the rules for social networks], Technology Review.

}}

Danah boyd (stylized in all lowercase, born November 24, 1977 as Danah Michele Mattas){{cite web|last=boyd|first=danah|title = a bitty autobiography / a smattering of facts|work=danah.org | url = http://www.danah.org/aboutme.html|access-date =November 2, 2008}} She noted her mother added lowercase 'h' in birth name "danah" for typographical balance, reflecting the lowercase first letter 'd' and later changed her last name to lowercase "boyd" in 2000. is an American technology and social media scholar.{{GoogleScholar|BkGE4AsAAAAJ}}{{AcademicSearch|299359}}{{DBLP|name=Danah Boyd}}{{Cite journal | last1 = Donath | first1 = J. | last2 = boyd | first2 = d. | doi = 10.1023/B:BTTJ.0000047585.06264.cc | title = Public Displays of Connection | journal = BT Technology Journal | volume = 22 | issue = 4 | pages = 71 | year = 2004 | s2cid = 14502590 }}{{Cite book | last1 = Marlow | first1 = C. | last2 = Naaman | first2 = M. | last3 = boyd | first3 = d. | last4 = Davis | first4 = M. | chapter = HT06, tagging paper, taxonomy, Flickr, academic article, to read | doi = 10.1145/1149941.1149949 | title = Proceedings of the seventeenth conference on Hypertext and hypermedia – HYPERTEXT '06 | pages = 31 | year = 2006 | isbn = 978-1595934178 | s2cid = 12202818 }} She is a partner researcher at Microsoft Research, the founder of Data & Society Research Institute, and a distinguished visiting professor at Georgetown University.

Early life and education

Boyd grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Altoona, Pennsylvania.{{cite news |author=Debelle, Penelope |date=August 4, 2007 |title=A space of her own – Encounter with Danah Boyd |work=The Age |location=Australia |url=https://www.theage.com.au/technology/a-space-of-her-own-20070804-ge5i6l.html |quote=BORN November 24, 1977, Altoona, Pennsylvania, United States. }} According to her website, she was born Danah Michele Mattas.{{cite web |last=boyd |first=danah |title=What's in a Name? |url=http://www.danah.org/name.html |access-date=March 30, 2008 |work=danah.org}}

She attended Manheim Township High School from 1992 to 1996. She used online discussions forums during high school. She called Lancaster a "religious and conservative" city. Having had online discussions on the topic, she began to identify as queer.{{Cite news | url=http://www.lemonde.fr/festival/article/2014/08/20/danah-boyd-anthropologue-de-la-generation-numerique_4473731_4415198.html |title = Danah boyd, anthropologue de la génération numérique|newspaper = Le Monde.fr|date = August 20, 2014}} A few years later, her brother taught her how to use IRC and Usenet. She became a participant on Usenet and IRC in her junior year in high school, spending a lot of time browsing, creating content, and conversing with strangers.{{Cite web|url=http://www.danah.org/aboutme.html|title=a bitty auto-biography / a smattering of facts|website=www.danah.org|access-date=2019-08-14}} Though active academically, boyd had a difficult time socially in high school. She credits "her survival to her mother, the Internet, and a classmate whose misogynistic comments inspired her to excel."File:Danah Boyd.jpg

At Brown University, boyd studied computer science and worked with Andries van Dam writing an undergraduate thesis about how visual depth cues in a virtual 3D environment affect depth perception.{{cite web |last1=boyd |first1=dana |title=Depth Cues in Virtual Reality and Real World: Understanding Individual Differences in Depth Perception by Studying Shape-from-shading and Motion Parallax |url=https://www.danah.org/papers/sexvision.pdf}}{{secondary source needed|date=May 2025}} Once she reached college, she chose to take her maternal grandfather's name, Boyd, as her own last name. She decided to spell her name in lowercase so as "to reflect my mother's original balancing and to satisfy my own political irritation at the importance of capitalization."

She pursued her master's degree in social media with Judith Donath at the MIT Media Lab's Sociable Media Group. She worked for the New York-based activist organization V-Day, first as a volunteer (starting in 2004) and then as paid staff (2007–2009). She eventually moved to San Francisco, where she met the individuals involved in creating the new Friendster service. She documented what she was observing via her blog, and this grew into a career.{{cite news | work=The New York Times | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/27/technology/circuits/27frie.html | title=Decoding the New Cues in Online Society | last=Erard | first=Michael | date=November 27, 2003 | access-date=May 22, 2010 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120604185643/http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/27/technology/circuits/27frie.html | archive-date=June 4, 2012 | df=mdy-all }}

In 2008, boyd earned a Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Information,{{cite thesis |degree=PhD |first=danah |last=boyd |title=Taken out of context: American teen sociality in networked publics |publisher=University of California, Berkeley |date=2008 |url=http://oskicat.berkeley.edu/search~S1?/e308t+2008+1093 |author-link=Danah boyd |archive-date=April 14, 2021 |access-date=January 16, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414095909/http://oskicat.berkeley.edu/search~S1?%2Fe308t%202008%201093 |url-status=dead }} advised by Peter Lyman (1940–2007) and Mizuko Ito. Her dissertation, Taken Out of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics, focused on the use of large social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace by U.S. teenagers,{{cite web|url=http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/antisemitism/voices/transcript/index.php?content=20091022 |title=Voices on Antisemitism interview with danah boyd |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |date=2009-10-22 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120505174453/http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/antisemitism/voices/transcript/index.php?content=20091022 |archive-date=May 5, 2012 |df=mdy }} and was blogged on Boing Boing.{{cite web|url=http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2009/01/18/taken_out_of_co.html |title=Taken Out of Context – my PhD dissertation |work=zephoria.org |date=January 18, 2009 }}{{ cite web | url=http://boingboing.net/2009/01/19/danah-boyds-phd-thes.html | title=danah boyd's PhD thesis: Teen sociality online | last=Doctorow | first=Cory | publisher=Boing Boing | access-date=May 22, 2010 | date=January 19, 2009 | author-link=Cory Doctorow }}

Career

File:Danah Boyd (12776738645).jpg

While in graduate school, she was involved with a three-year ethnographic project funded by the MacArthur Foundation and led by Mimi Ito; the project examined youths' use of technologies through interviews, focus groups, observations, and document analysis.{{cite web |url=http://digitallearning.macfound.org/site/c.enJLKQNlFiG/b.4773555/k.27DE/Mizuko_Ito.htm |title=MacArthur Foundation Project Summary |access-date=January 9, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090202003759/http://digitallearning.macfound.org/site/c.enJLKQNlFiG/b.4773555/k.27DE/Mizuko_Ito.htm |archive-date=February 2, 2009 |url-status=dead }}{{cite web |url=http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/report |title=Final Report |work=The Digital Youth Project |access-date=January 9, 2009 |archive-date=September 21, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190921202716/http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/report |url-status=dead }} Her publications included an article in the MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Learning, Identity Volume called "Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life."{{cite journal |last=boyd |first=danah |editor1-first=David |editor1-last=Buckingham |title=Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life |journal=Youth, Identity, and Digital Media |series=The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning |at=[https://archive.org/details/9780262026352/page/119 119–142] |publisher=MIT Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=978-0262026352 |doi=10.31219/osf.io/22hq2 |url=https://issuelab.org/resources/884/884.pdf |access-date=May 16, 2010 |year=2008 |ssrn=1518924|s2cid=153326533 }} The article focuses on social networks' implications for youth identity. The project culminated with a co-authored book "Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media."{{cite book |last=Ito |first=Mimi |title=Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media |publisher=MIT Press |date=September 2009 |isbn=978-0-262-01336-9 |display-authors=etal |url=https://archive.org/details/9780262013369 }}

During the 2006–07 academic year, boyd was a fellow at the Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California. She was a long-time fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, where she co-directed the Internet Safety Technical Task Force,{{cite web |date=January 13, 2009 |title=Members of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force |url=http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/isttf/members |access-date=May 22, 2010 |publisher=Berkman Center for Internet & Society}} and then served on the Youth and Media Policy Working Group.{{cite web |date=June 19, 2018 |title=Youth and Media Policy Working Group Initiative |url=http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/digitalnatives/policy}}

In 2007, she published research on youth using Facebook and MySpace in Race After the Internet.{{Cite web|last=boyd|first=danah|title=White Flight in Networked Publics? How Race and Class Shaped American Teen Engagement with MySpace and Facebook|url=http://www.danah.org/papers/2011/WhiteFlight.pdf|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120314192154/http://www.danah.org/papers/2011/WhiteFlight.pdf |archive-date=March 14, 2012 }} She demonstrated that most young users of Facebook were white and middle-to-upper class, while MySpace users tended to be lower-class black teenagers. She argued that people tend to connect with like-minded individuals, also known as homophily, which perpetuates these enduring social hierarchies. Boyd focused on the concept of white flight by connecting the analogy to how white, privileged teens were forced to leave MySpace by their parents. Fueled by fear that MySpace was a "digital ghetto", parents of these teens were more welcoming of Facebook's network effects. Over time, these differences were exacerbated and led to the social reputation of these social media platforms.

Her work has been translated and relayed to major media. In addition to blogging on her own site, she addresses issues of youth and technology use on the DMLcentral blog. Boyd has written academic papers and op-ed pieces on online culture.{{cite book |last=Shirky |first=Clay |author-link=Clay Shirky |title=Here Comes Everybody |publisher=Penguin Group |date=February 28, 2008 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/herecomeseverybo0000shir/page/224 224–5] |isbn=978-1-59420-153-0 |title-link=Here Comes Everybody (book) }}

Her career as a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center started in 2007. In January 2009, boyd joined Microsoft Research New England, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as a Social Media Researcher.{{cite web|url=http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10047795-36.html|title=Microsoft hires social-net scholar Danah Boyd|author=McCarthy, Caroline|date=September 22, 2008|publisher=CNET|access-date=January 12, 2009|archive-date=October 29, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029195653/http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10047795-36.html|url-status=dead}}

In 2013, boyd founded Data & Society Research Institute to address the social, technical, ethical, legal and policy issues that were emerging from data-centric technological development.

As of 2022, boyd is president of Data & Society.{{Cite web|title=danah boyd|url=https://datasociety.net/people/boyd-danah/|access-date=2022-01-03|website=Data & Society|language=en-US}} Also as of 2022, she is a Partner Researcher at Microsoft Research and a visiting professor at Georgetown University and New York University.{{Cite web|title=bio and photos for conferences/publications|url=https://www.danah.org/bio.html|access-date=2022-01-03|website=www.danah.org}} She also serves{{When|date=January 2022}} on the board of directors of Crisis Text Line (since 2012),{{cite web |url=https://www.linkedin.com/in/danahboyd |title=danah boyd, Partner Researcher, Microsoft Research |website=LinkedIn}}{{Self-published inline|date=July 2021}} as a Trustee of the National Museum of the American Indian, on the board of the Social Science Research Council, and on the advisory board of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).{{Citation needed|date=January 2022}}

= Book-length publications =

In 2008, boyd published her PhD dissertation titled Taken Out of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics at University of California, Berkeley.
In 2009, boyd co-wrote Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media with Mizuko Ito, Sonja Baumer, Matteo Bittanti, Rachel Cody, Becky Herr Stephenson, Heather A. Horst, Patricia G. Lange, Dilan Mahendran, Katynka Z. Martínez, C. J. Pascoe, Dan Perkel, Laura Robinson, Christo Sims and Lisa Tripp.
In early 2014, boyd published her book It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens at Yale University Press.{{cite book|author=boyd, danah|url=https://www.danah.org/books/ItsComplicated.pdf|title=It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens|publisher=Yale University Press|year=2014|isbn=9780300166316|url-access=registration}} In It's Complicated, boyd argues that social media is not as threatening as parents think it is and that it provides teenagers with a space to express their feelings and ideas without being judged.
In 2015, Henry Jenkins, Mimi Ito, and boyd published Participatory Culture in a Networked Era at Polity Press.{{Cite web|url=http://www.danah.org/papers/|title=danah boyd :: Publications|website=www.danah.org|access-date=2018-04-22}}

= Peer-reviewed articles and academic contributions =

In 2011, boyd published a research paper with Microsoft Research and Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society titled White Flight in Network Publics? How Race and Class Shaped American Teen Engagement with MySpace and Facebook. This was published in the book Race After the Internet.
In 2013, boyd co-wrote Keep it Secret, Keep it Safe: Information Poverty, Information Norms, and Stigma with Jessa Lingel. This was published in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology.

Honors and awards

File:Danah boyd at ROFLCon II 2.jpg at MIT in 2010]]

In 2009 Fast Company named boyd one of the most influential women in technology.{{ cite news | url=http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/132/the-most-influential-women-in-technology-the-evangelists.html | title=Women in Tech: The Evangelists | author=Fast Company Staff | work=Fast Company | date=February 1, 2009 | access-date=May 22, 2010 }} In May 2010, she received the Award for Public Sociology from the American Sociological Association's Communication and Information Technologies section.{{ cite web | url=http://citasa.org/awards | title=2010 CITASA Awards | access-date=May 30, 2010 | year=2010 | publisher=CITASA }} Also in 2010, Fortune named her the smartest academic in the technology field{{ cite news | url=https://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/technology/1007/gallery.smartest_people_tech.fortune/26.html | title=Smartest Academic: Danah Boyd | access-date=January 8, 2010 | date=September 7, 2010 | author=Jessi Hempel |author2=Beth Kowitt | work=Fortune }} and "the reigning expert on how young people use the Internet."{{cite news | url=https://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/fortune/1010/gallery.fast_risers_under_40.fortune/index.html | title=Ones to watch: Danah Boyd | access-date=October 14, 2010 | author=Hempel, Jessi | year=2010 | publisher=Fortune}} In 2010, boyd was included on the TR35 list of top innovators under the age of 35.{{cite web | url=http://www.technologyreview.com/TR35/Profile.aspx?Cand=T&TRID=948 | title=Danah Boyd, 32 | access-date=August 25, 2010 | author=Naone, Erica | year=2010 | work=Technology Review}} She was a 2011 Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. Foreign Policy named boyd one of its 2012 Top 100 Global Thinkers "for showing us that Big Data isn't necessarily better data".{{cite web |url=https://foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/11/26/the_fp_100_global_thinkers?page=0,54 |title=The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers |date=26 November 2012 |work=Foreign Policy |access-date=28 November 2012 |archive-date=November 30, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121130221322/http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/11/26/the_fp_100_global_thinkers?page=0%2C33 |url-status=dead |df=mdy }}

In 2019, boyd received the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Barlow/Pioneer Award for her work as a "Trailblazing Technology Scholar",{{Cite web|url=https://www.eff.org/awards/pioneer/2019|title=Pioneer Award Ceremony 2019|date=2019-08-15|website=Electronic Frontier Foundation|language=en|access-date=2019-09-15}} and gave a keynote highlighting women's situation in the tech industry and specifically the controversies at the time involving the MIT Media Lab.{{Cite web|last=boyd|first=danah|date=2019-09-13|title=Facing the Great Reckoning Head-On|url=https://medium.com/@zephoria/facing-the-great-reckoning-head-on-8fe434e10630|access-date=2019-09-15|website=Medium|language=en}}

Boyd has spoken at academic conferences including SIGIR, SIGGRAPH, CHI, Etechm Personal Democracy Forum, Strata Data and the AAAS annual meeting.{{Citation needed|date=January 2022}} She gave the keynote addresses at SXSWi 2010 and WWW 2010, discussing privacy, publicity and big data.{{cite press release | url=http://sxsw.com/node/4604 | title=danah boyd's Opening Remarks on Privacy and Publicity | publisher=South by Southwest | date=March 14, 2010 | access-date=May 22, 2010 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100317133847/http://www.sxsw.com/node/4604 | archive-date=March 17, 2010 | url-status=dead }}{{ cite news | url=https://techcrunch.com/2010/03/13/privacy-publicity-sxsw/ | title=Danah Boyd: How Technology Makes A Mess Of Privacy and Publicity | date=2010-03-13 | access-date=May 22, 2010 | last=Kincaid | first=Jason | publisher=TechCrunch }}{{cite web | url=http://www2010.org/www/2010/04/www2010-keynote-tallk/ | title=Keynote Talk: danah boyd on "Publicity and Privacy in Web 2.0" | access-date=May 22, 2010 | date=April 29, 2010 | publisher=WWW 2010 | archive-date=June 25, 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180625161440/http://www2010.org/www/2010/04/www2010-keynote-tallk/ | url-status=dead }} She also appeared in the 2008 PBS Frontline documentary Growing Up Online, providing commentary on youth and technology.{{cite press release | url=http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/3885 | title=PBS Frontline: "Growing Up Online" with danah boyd – January 22nd | access-date=May 22, 2010 | date=2008-01-14 | publisher=Berkman Center for Internet & Society | archive-date=November 29, 2014 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141129024728/http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/3885 | url-status=dead }} In 2015, she was a speaker at Everett Parker Lecture.{{cite web|access-date=2019-09-07|title=OC Inc.|url=http://uccmediajustice.org/p/salsa/web/common/public/content?content_item_KEY=12661|website=uccmediajustice.org|archive-date=February 27, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190227192832/http://uccmediajustice.org/p/salsa/web/common/public/content?content_item_KEY=12661|url-status=dead}} In 2017, boyd gave a keynote titled “Your Data is Being Manipulated” at the 2017 Strata Data Conference, presented by O’Reilly and Cloudera, in New York City.{{Cite web|url=https://conferences.oreilly.com/strata/strata-ny-2017/public/schedule/speaker/63069|title=danah boyd at Strata Data Conference in New York 2017|website=conferences.oreilly.com|access-date=2018-04-22}} In March 2018, she gave a keynote titled "What Hath We Wrought?" at SXSW EDU 2018{{Cite news|url=https://www.sxswedu.com/news/2018/watch-danah-boyd-keynote-what-hath-we-wrought-video/|title=Watch danah boyd Keynote, What Hath We Wrought? [VIDEO]|date=2018-03-08|work=SXSW EDU|access-date=2018-04-22|language=en-US}} and another keynote titled “Hacking Big Data” at the University of Texas at Austin, discussing data-driven and algorithmic systems.{{Cite web|url=https://calendar.utexas.edu/event/media_ethics_initiative_danah_boyd_on_hacking_big_data#.Wt0KUtPwY1I|title=Media Ethics Initiative: danah boyd on Hacking Big Data|website=UT Events Calendar|language=en|access-date=2018-04-22}} In November 2018, she was featured among "America's Top 50 Women In Tech" by Forbes.{{cite web|url=https://www.forbes.com/profile/danah-boyd/?list=top-tech-women-america |title=Danah boyd |work=Forbes}}

Personal life

Boyd has stated she has an "attraction to people of different genders", and identifies as queer. On her website, boyd notes that she attributes her "comfortableness with [her] sexuality to the long nights in high school discussing the topic in IRC". She is married and has three children.{{cite web|last=boyd|first=danah|title = Heads Up: Upcoming Parental Leave |date=February 20, 2017 | url = https://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2017/02/20/heads-up-upcoming-parental-leave.html|access-date=February 20, 2017}}

References

External links

https://www.danah.org/ Homepage
[https://web.archive.org/web/20090520012250/http://www.ibiblio.org/speakers/index.cgi/2006/09/14#boyd06 A Discussion with danah boyd], Ibiblio Speaker Series, 2006
[http://edtechtalk.com/node/3085 An interview with danah boyd], Women of Web 2.0 Show, 2008
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Nfyw2KYHWw danah boyd Interview] at YouTube
[http://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/content/view/3089/32/ Friending Your Child by Lawrence Goodman], Brown Alumni Magazine, 2012

Category:1977 births

Category:Living people

Category:Academics from Pennsylvania

Category:American bloggers

Category:Berkman Fellows

Category:Brown University alumni

Category:Human–computer interaction researchers

Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni

Category:People from Altoona, Pennsylvania

Category:Writers from Lancaster, Pennsylvania

Category:American queer women

Category:University of California, Berkeley School of Information alumni