{{Short description|American political scientist}} {{Infobox academic | name = Bruce Bimber | image = Bruce Allen Bimber 2024.webp | caption = Bimber in 2024. | discipline = Political science | sub_discipline = Political Communication, digital media, collective action | workplaces = University of California, Santa Barbara | education = Ph.D. in Political Science (1992); BS Electrical Engineering (1983) | alma_mater = Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University | doctoral_advisor = | academic_advisors = | notable_students = | influenced = David Karpf,<ref name=":2"/> Steven Livingston<ref>{{cite journal | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep26817.8 | title=Remerciements | last1=Livingston | first1=Steven | journal=La Révolution de l'Information en Afrique | date=2013 | pages=58–59 }}</ref> | known_for = | website = {{URL|https://www.brucebimber.net/}} | occupation = Professor, political scientist, communication scholar | honorific_suffix = FAAAS, FICA | main_interests = Political communication, social media, political behavior, collective action, technological determinism | notable_works = ''Information and American Democracy'' (2003) }}
'''Bruce A. Bimber''' {{Post-nominals|list=FAAAS, FICA}} is an American social scientist, author, and academic. Bimber is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He is known for his work in political communication, particularly the relationship between digital media and human behavior in political organization and collective action. Bimber was the founding director of the Center for Information Technology and Society at UCSB,<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=THE NET EFFECT Series: LIFE ONLINE: [SOUTH |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/263472936 |access-date=2024-08-05 |website=www.proquest.com |language=en |quote=Bruce Bimber, director of the Center for Information Technology and Society at the University of California at Santa Barbara, falls somewhere in the middle. He thinks the population using the Internet is too diverse to accurately measure. No two people start using the Net at the same time, and as with TV viewing, their habits can vary greatly.}}</ref> and the founder of the Center for Nanotechnology and Society,<ref>{{Cite web |title=The minuscule risks we ignore - ProQuest |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/356680344 |access-date=2024-08-05 |website=www.proquest.com |id={{ProQuest|356680344}} |language=en |quote=Another concerned expert is engineer and social scientist Bruce Bimber of the University of California at Santa Barbara. "We have to pay attention to nanotechnology before it hits us on the head," says Bimber, who founded the UCSB Center for Nanotechnology and Society to do just that.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Unchecked nano development a no-no: [1 All-round - ProQuest |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/357534405 |access-date=2024-08-05 |website=www.proquest.com |id={{ProQuest|357534405}} |language=en}}</ref> has been a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science since 2011,<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |author=Indy Staff |date=2011-01-12 |title=Eight UCSB Faculty Members Named AAAS Fellows |url=https://www.independent.com/2011/01/12/eight-ucsb-faculty-members-named-aaas-fellows-2/ |access-date=2024-08-06 |website=The Santa Barbara Independent |language=en-US}}</ref> and is a Fellow of the International Communication Association.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Bruce Bimber {{!}} Department of Political Science - UC Santa Barbara |url=https://www.polsci.ucsb.edu/people/bruce-bimber |access-date=2024-08-06 |website=www.polsci.ucsb.edu}}</ref>
== Biography ==
=== Early life and education === As an undergraduate, Bimber studied electrical engineering and graduated from Stanford University. He then worked in Silicon Valley during the 1980s before pursuing graduate studies in political science, earning his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992. Before joining the faculty at UC Santa Barbara, he worked at the RAND Corporation in Washington, D.C., on education policy and technology policy.<ref>{{Cite web |title=SCIENCE WATCH; Taking a Broader Look at - ProQuest |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/421515941 |access-date=2024-08-05 |website=www.proquest.com |id={{ProQuest|421515941}} |language=en |quote=Bimber is a former electrical engineer with roots in Silicon Valley who decided in the early '80s that he wanted to study what the computer revolution means for society, rather than contribute to the technology itself.}}</ref>
=== Academia and research work === At UC Santa Barbara, Bimber has been affiliated with the Department of Political Science, and the Center for Information Technology and Society (which he founded in 1999), and has a courtesy appointment with the Department of Communication. He is also involved with the Center for Responsible Machine Learning. Bimber’s research examines how digital media affect democratic politics, with a particular focus on the problems associated with social media, such as selective exposure, polarization, populism, and disinformation.
Bimber's book ''"Information and American Democracy"'' (2003, Cambridge University Press) explored how radical changes in technological mediums create opportunities for innovation, highlighting the concept of post-bureaucratic organizations. In this book and earlier work, Bimber argued that the Internet's primary political effect was not increasing overall participation but rather accelerating collective action among already-engaged citizens by facilitating the formation of advocacy and protest groups. Political scientist David Karpf has cited Bimber's work as foundational to understanding how organizations like MoveOn.org and Daily Kos differ from older activist groups in their use of digital tools.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last=Wihbey |first=John |date=2012-07-02 |title=Research chat: David Karpf, scholar of Internet organizing and activism |url=https://journalistsresource.org/media/research-chat-david-karpf-scholar-internet-organizing-activism/ |access-date=2024-08-06 |website=The Journalist's Resource |language=en-US |quote=David Karpf: Probably the biggest one is what I would call the “disruption thesis.” A lot of what I’m discussing in my book when I’m looking at MoveOn.org or Daily Kos — all of this new generation of organizations — is very similar to what Bruce Bimber found in his 2003 book Information and American Democracy. Bruce was saying that when you radically change the technological medium, that creates opportunity for innovation. He talked about post-bureaucratic organizations. So I’m coming along nine years later and looking at what those organizations have turned out to be. It’s very much in line with what he was then suggesting. But what really wasn’t clear when he was researching for that book was that there’s a generation gap among organizations. It’s not the Environmental Defense Fund and the Sierra Clubs and the ACLU that are leading in terms of innovation. There’s a real difference in how a MoveOn.org or a Daily Kos uses email, blogs, Twitter and all of these social media, compared to how the older activist groups do. This is what I call the “MoveOn” effect — this isn’t about the effectiveness of MoveOn, per se — it’s about changes in how we define members and how we raise money from members.}}</ref>
Bimber has long argued that the impact of the Internet on political behavior is complex.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Schlozman |first1=Kay Lehman |last2=Verba |first2=Sidney |last3=Brady |first3=Henry E. |date=June 2010 |title=Weapon of the Strong? Participatory Inequality and the Internet |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1537592710001210/type/journal_article |journal=Perspectives on Politics |language=en |volume=8 |issue=2 |pages=487–509 |doi=10.1017/S1537592710001210 |issn=1537-5927 |quote=In 1998 Bruce Bimber observed cautiously that it would be some time before the full political impact of the Internet would become apparent. That modest assessment continues to be appropriate.|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Persuasion Too? - ProQuest |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/215698857 |access-date=2024-08-12 |website=www.proquest.com |id={{ProQuest|215698857}} |language=en |quote=An important new study by two political scientists, Bruce Bimber of University of California at Santa Barbara and Richard Davis of Brigham Young, confirms what has been an established principle among political consultants since I started tracking online campaigning in 1998; the Internet is a great medium for communicating with your base, but not so great for attracting the attention of swing voters and converting them to your side.}}</ref> In 2000, he said the Internet should not be viewed as a single entity with a uniform effect, that is either good or bad, and more research was needed to understand its impact fully.<ref name=":0" /> In 2023, he characterized the internet as a "virtual Wild West" lacking the regulatory frameworks common to other major industries. Bimber has called for stronger public policy responses to harms associated with the internet and has expressed concern about the pace of AI development outrunning regulatory frameworks.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-10-11 |title=Technology and democracy in crisis: time to 'get uncomfortable and get curious' |url=https://news.ucsb.edu/2023/021226/technology-and-democracy-crisis-time-get-uncomfortable-and-get-curious |access-date=2024-08-06 |website=The Current |language=en |quote=Closing the conference, Bruce Bimber, a UCSB political scientist who has been studying the internet for three decades, described the online universe as a virtual Wild West that lacks the regulatory principles and governing bodies common to other megalithic global industries, such as agriculture, aviation and pharmaceuticals, among many others.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brundidge |first=Jennifer |date=2024-06-01 |title=The Public Sphere Is "Too Darn Hot": Social Identity Complexity as a Basis for Authentic Communication |journal=Journalism and Media |language=en |volume=5 |issue=2 |pages=688–701 |doi=10.3390/journalmedia5020045 |doi-access=free |issn=2673-5172 |quote=In fact, the notion of porous boundaries is evoked repeatedly in early Internet-related scholarship (e.g., Bimber et al. 2005; Brundidge 2010; Cammaerts and van Audenhove 2005).}}</ref>
Bimber has also written on technological determinism, arguing that Karl Marx was more economically deterministic than technologically deterministic, and proposing a typology of approaches to technological determinism.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |last=Falcone |first=Daniel |date=2022-05-06 |title=Karl Marx: Student and Teacher of Technology |url=https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/05/06/karl-marx-student-and-teacher-of-technology/ |access-date=2024-08-06 |website=CounterPunch.org |language=en-US |quote=Bruce Bimber further explains technological determinism as it applies to Marx’s specific views on technology and culture. He is interested in the varied approaches in looking at technological determinism (TD) and explains Marx’s outlook of human self-expression and resistance to alienation while arguing that Marx was more economically deterministic than he was technologically. TD states that a society’s technology defines the growth of its social construct, overall culture, and societal beliefs and values. The phrase in this context, is often used in academia by sociologists and economists. Bimber doubts that Marx was himself purely determinist and sets out to explain technological determinism’s three faces. All three faces are considered technologically deterministic, but Bimber cites how comparing them allows for a clearer understanding if Marx was a proponent of TD or not.}}</ref>
Bimber's recent research has examined conspiracy theories and misinformation in the US and Europe. His research has examined how different social media platforms vary in their implications for the spread of conspiracy theories and misinformation.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |date=2024-02-01 |title=Democracy is more fragile than you think |url=https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/democracy-more-fragile-you-think |access-date=2024-08-06 |website=University of California |language=en |quote=“Democracy is hard,” says Bruce Bimber, distinguished professor of political science at UC Santa Barbara. “Accepting that people you disagree with are as legitimate as you are places high demands — in some ways, unrealistic demands — on an individual.}}</ref>
=== Fellowships === Bimber was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2011.<ref name=":1" /> He is also a fellow of the International Communication Association and a past fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.
== Selected publications ==
=== Books ===
* Bimber, B. (2003). ''Information and American democracy: Technology in the evolution of political power''. Cambridge University Press.<ref name=":2" /> * Bimber, B. A. (1996). ''The politics of expertise in Congress: The rise and fall of the Office of Technology Assessment''. SUNY Press. {{ISBN|9780791430590}} * Bimber, B., Flanagin, A., & Stohl, C. (2012). ''Collective action in organizations: Interaction and engagement in an era of technological change''. Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|9780521191722}} * Bimber, B., & Davis, R. (2003). ''Campaigning online: The Internet in US elections''. Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|9780198034575}}
=== Selected recent journal articles ===
* Bimber, B., Labarre, J., Gomez, D., Nikiforov, I., & Koc-Michalska, K. (2024). Media use, feelings of being devalued, and democratically corrosive sentiment in the US. ''International Journal of Press/Politics''. {{doi|10.1177/19401612241253455}} * Gelovani, S., Theocharis, Y., Koc-Michalska, K., & Bimber, B. (2024). Intergroup ethnocentrism and social media: Evidence from three western democracies. ''Information, Communication & Society''. {{doi|10.1080/1369118X.2024.2375259}} * Gomez, D., Gueirrez Garcia-Pardo, I., Labarre, J., & Bimber, B. (2024). [https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10611766 Beyond Large Language Models: Rediscovering the role of classical statistics in modern data science.] ''Proceedings of the IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence''. * Theocharis, Y., Boulianne, S., Koc-Michalska, K., & Bimber, B. (2023). Platform affordances and political participation: How social media reshape political engagement. West European Politics, 46(4), 788-811. {{doi|10.1080/01402382.2022.2087410}} * Mei, A., Kabir, A., Levy, S., Subbiah, M., Allaway, E., Judge, J., Patton, D., Bimber, B., McKeown, K., & Yang, W. (2022). Mitigating covertly unsafe text within natural language systems. Findings of the 2022 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing. {{Arxiv|id=2210.09306}} * Bimber, B. & Gil de Zúñiga, H. (2022). Social influence and political participation around the world. European Journal of Political Science, 14(2), 135-154. {{doi|10.1017/S175577392200008X}}
== References == {{reflist}}
== External links == * [https://www.polsci.ucsb.edu/people/bruce-bimber Bimber's Web Site]
{{Portal bar|Biography|Politics|United States|Internet|Journalism}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bimber, Bruce}} Category:Political scientists Category:Communication scholars Category:University of California, Santa Barbara faculty Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Category:Stanford University alumni Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Living people