We are particularly interested in research that addresses key topics at the intersection of digital technology and democracy and bring together a cohort of researchers addressing these issues at global, regional, and local levels. The Lab creates collaboration and exchange between academia and thought-leaders, technologists, policymakers, activists, civil society organizations, artists, and creative practitioners, taking a broadly transdisciplinary and global approach.
Research & Programming
Our Approach
The DTD Lab works to explore how rapidly evolving digital technologies can challenge, but might also fortify, democratic institutions and practices.
Areas of Focus
AI Impact Atlas
Subterranean Convergence
Open-Source AI as Democratic Infrastructure
AI Shock
Automated Futures
Multimodal Climate AI
Data in the Dark
Automation’s Ecologies
Visual Misinformation
AI & the Environment
Student Technology Council
Technology & Disinformation
Social Contagions
Gender & Tech
Co-Opting AI
Urban Digital Twins
Technology & Democracy Exchange
Data Center Policies
Descendant-Led Digital Humanities Lab & Network
Cryptocurrency & Democracy
Featured Resources
Data Center Policy Database
This comprehensive publicly available database for local, state, and federal U.S. data center policy tracks more than 700 data center policies across the U.S. from the past few years. The database is searchable by key issue, date, level of government, or status. Learn more and explore the database.
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Reimagining AI for Environmental Justice and Creativity
This collection of essays emerged from a Fall 2024 workshop and is designed to become a resource for a broad audience with various backgrounds, skills, and interests. The ideas featured help reflect upon the challenges ahead when building, using and evaluating AI in different contexts. Learn more and download a free copy.
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Insights from the Visual Generative AI and Propaganda Convening
This report provides a summary of Visual Generative AI and Propaganda Convening held in September 2024. The event brought together experts to examine the challenges posed by increasingly sophisticated AI-generated visual content on public trust and democratic processes. Learn more and download a free copy.
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Video Library
FLiNG Report Launch: How Finfluencers, Fin-Tech, and FOMO Shape Young Adults’ Financial Well-being
Cryptocurrency & Democracy
Faculty & Postdoc Publications
Information integrity and the responsibility of application providers in relation to digital advertising.
A new article co-authored by Yasmin Curzi, DTD Lab research affiliate, investigates how the emerging concept of information integrity can reorient the parameters of application provider responsibility regarding online advertising. It argues that business models based on algorithmic ranking can compromise the integrity of public space, requiring transparency, observability, and accountability mechanisms from platforms.
Digital strategies of resilience: LGBTQ+ youth and identity fluidity in rural Iraq
LGBTQ+ youth in rural Iraq remain largely absent from global scholarship despite facing profound risks arising from criminalization, entrenched conservatism, and geographic isolation. A recent article co-authored by Ahmed Alrawi, DTD Lab 2024-26 postdoc, examines how rural Iraqi LGBTQ+ youth employ digital platforms to negotiate identity, manage stigma, and sustain community ties under repressive social and legal conditions.
Amplifying the storm: Climate disinformation dynamics during natural disasters on right-wing extremist Telegram channels
A new article from the DTD Lab research team including UVA alum Diego DiMattina, postdoc Andre Sobral, and faculty co-lead David Nemer, finds that climate disinformation is consistently amplified through unregulated platforms and conspiracist sources. Strikingly, a substantial portion of this amplification reflects coordinated behavior, suggesting both an opportunistic nature and the potential involvement of actors seeking to control climate narratives.
Join our vibrant lab and help us explore the intersection of democracy and digital technology.
Current Opportunities