Category: Posts

As Christmas approaches, I’ve been reflecting on the image of the Dormition of Mary—more common in the East than West. Why is Mary’s soul a nonbinary baby? https://www.americamagazine.org/faithinfocus/2025/12/12/mary-death-dormition-art/

AI doesn’t have to be run only by and for a few enormous companies. Just out from Metagov! A digital zine listing the MANY ways that people are trying to make AI more governable, accountable, and community-controlled: https://metagov.org/cg-ai/

Over the weekend, the GreenPill podcast dropped this conversation I had with one of the governance technologists I admire most, former Taiwan digital minister Audrey Tang: https://pod.link/1609313639/episode/NWRjNTkzZjEtNzczMS00Zjk1LTljMTUtYWQwZWRlMWFmM2Nl It is pretty sci-fi. But in times like these, sci-fi is at least part of what we need.

Abstracts due on 12/1: I’m editing a special issue of the Int’l Journal of Communication on “the imaginative landscape of AI.” Help us map the imaginaries of this stuff beyond the tech industry fluff: https://comai.space/en/call-for-papers-the-imaginative-landscape-of-ai-visions-positions-conflicts-2/

For a taste of what I’ve been working on this season, I have a new, tiny-little essay in the in-house journal of our Center for Media, Religion, and Culture, Rhythms: “Are Protocols Elite?” Based on a collab with Avery Edenfield. https://www.colorado.edu/cmrc/2025/11/06/rhythms-fall-2025-counter-media

Over the past year, my lab has hosted a cohort of people from around the world who are trying to move their communities to online tools under their control. OUT TODAY: Learn about their thinking and doing in our collectively authored Open Social Network Cookbook. https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/2025/11/03/open-social-network-cookbook

How can we calibrate online democracy for the attention economy? On November 5, I’ll be doing a virtual lecture for Columbia University on my new co-authored paper, “Online Governance Surfaces and Attention Economies.”Register here: https://columbiauniversity.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_DZfEoh2lTva7c5kdALiYzQ#/registrationRead the paper: https://osf.io/preprints/mediarxiv/cdrmp_v1

During the past year, my lab hosted a cohort of communities around the world adopting open social networks. Together, they’ve created a beautiful cookbook full of their lessons and reflections. Come to the launch event on November 3: https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/2025/launch-event-open-social-incubator

At this week’s Metagov Seminar, join me to celebrate my colleague Lori Emerson’s gorgeous new book, Other Networks, a sourcebook of stories and designs for networks that are not the internet: https://luma.com/4kfjgd6a