Journalism and Media Studies Department

The roots of systemic inequality have structured our contemporary world. Those with economic and political power have upheld these patterns of inequality as they shape mediated discourse and technological development. We see it today as information and communication technologies are framed as neutral, colorblind, meritocratic arbiters of ever-wider swathes of public and private life while placing certain populations at higher risk, blaming them for their vulnerability, and exonerating powerful entities from accountability. 

Ethnographers study people by observing their lives where and as they unfold. But questions of being there and present are made more complicated and interesting with digital life and the role of information and communication technologies and media in work, play, and in all aspects of life. 

The Behavioral Informatics Lab looks at multiple problems at the intersection of Big Data Analytics, Computational Social Science, and Multimedia Information Systems. The field of Behavioral Informatics focuses on sensing, understanding, and shaping human behavior in a data-driven manner. 

The Health Humanities, Communications, and Informatics (HHCI) working group is a team of multi-disciplinary researchers centered around the core concept of data equity. 

The health and wellness faculty cluster brings together faculty across the school whose research, teaching and service focus centrally on closing disparities and improving health and wellness outcomes for individual, groups, and communities in the U.S. and globally. 

SC&I Youth Cluster is a community of scholars from the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University who explore the role of communication, media, information, and technology in the lives of young people and the people and institutions that surround them. Our mission is two-fold: 1) to provide opportunities within the school for support, synergy, and collaboration; 2) to advance knowledge within the field by identifying cutting edge issues, and bringing to bear our collective skills to address these issues.

The Social Media and Society Cluster is a transdisciplinary unit within Rutgers School of Communication and Information that supports research extending across the boundaries of the i-School, communication, and media studies programs within the School. For more information and examples of members' research, see the Cluster website.