Bruce Bimber
Department Vice Chair
Professor
Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1992

Fields of Interest: Political Communication and Behavior, New Media

Professor Bimber's research examines the relationship between evolving information technology and changes in human behavior, especially in the domains of political organization, collective action, social capital, and political deliberation. He is the author of Information and American Democracy: Technology in the Evolution of Political Power (Cambridge University Press, 2003), which won the Don K. Price Award for Best Book on Science, Technology and Politics, and Campaigning Online: The Internet in U.S. Elections (with Richard Davis, Oxford University Press, 2003), which won the McGannon Communication Policy Award for social and ethical relevance in communication policy research. He is also author of The Politics of Expertise in Congress: The Rise and Fall of the Office of Technology Assessment (SUNY Press, 1996), and of many journal articles dealing with the relationship of technological change to collective action, politics, and civic engagement.

Professor Bimber is founder and Director Emeritus of the UCSB Center for Information Technology and Society, where he serves on the Faculty Steering Committee, and is a member of the Executive Committee of the NSF Center for Nanotechnology in Society at UCSB. He is also affiliated with the Department of Communication. Prior to joining the UCSB faculty in 1994, he worked for RAND in Washington, DC in a policy analysis department contracted to provide advice to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He has a doctorate in Political Science from MIT, and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford.

Courses Taught:

PS 12	American Government and Politics
PS 172	Technology Policy
PS 197	Senior Honors Seminar
PS 266	Seminar on Contemporary Problems in American Government

Selected Recent Publications:

"Technological Change and the Shifting Nature of Political Organization," in Andrew Chadwick and Philip Howard, eds., Handbook of Internet and Politics (Routledge, forthcoming.) With Cynthia Stoll and Andrew J. Flanagin.

"Modelling the Structure of Collective Action," Communication Monographs 73(1) (2006): 29-54. With Andrew Flanagin and Cynthia Stohl.

"Reconceptualizing Collective Action in the Contemporary Media Environment," Communication Theory 15(4) (2005): 365-388. With Andrew Flanagin and Cynthia Stohl.

"The Internet and Political Transformation Revisited," in Darin Barney and Andrew Freeberg, eds., Community in the Digital Age: Philosophy and Practice. Rowman and Littlefield, 2004, pp. 239-262.

Information and American Democracy: Technology in the Evolution of Political Power, Cambridge University Press, 2003.