Bruce Bimber

Bruce Bimber is Professor of Political Science at UC Santa Barbara. He studies political communication, using statistical methods to understand the relationship between use of digital media and patterns in human behavior, especially in the domains of political organization and collective action. One area of his research involves selective exposure to partisan news and its consequences for opinion and participation in democracy. Another area involves how protest, advocacy, political consumerism, and other forms of collective behavior are reshaped by social media and other tools.

His most recent book is Collective Action in Organizations (Cambridge University Press), with Andrew Flanagin and Cynthia Stohl. He is author of Information and American Democracy (Cambridge University Press), which won the Price Award for Best Book on Science, Technology and Politics from the American Political Science Association, and which is available in Chinese, Arabic, and Korean. His book Campaigning Online (Oxford University Press), with Richard Davis, won the McGannon Communication Policy Award for social and ethical relevance. He is also author of The Politics of Expertise in Congress (SUNY Press) and many articles in political science and communication journals.

He has been a member of the UC Santa Barbara faculty since 1993. In 1999, he founded the Center for Information Technology and Society. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a past Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He has worked for Hewlett-Packard and RAND Corporation. He has a doctorate in political science from MIT, and a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from Stanford.

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