Eszter Hargittai

Fellow

Eszter Hargittai is a professor and holds the Chair of Internet Use and Society at the Department of Communication and Media Research of the University of Zurich. She is a past fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford and Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society.

Hargittai’s research looks at how people may benefit from their digital media uses with a particular focus on how differences in people’s digital skills, including their algorithm skills, influence what they do online. Her research has been supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the U.S. National Science Foundation, Google, Microsoft Research, Facebook, Nokia and Merck, among others. Her work has received awards from several professional associations and for her teaching, she received the Galbut Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award of the School of Communication at Northwestern University.

Hargittai is a fellow of the International Communication Association, an external member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and a member of the Swiss National Science Foundation’s National Research Council. She has edited four books, most recently, the Handbook of Digital Inequality (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021). Her book is coming out in Fall 2022, entitled Connected in Isolation, which looks at digital inequality during the Covid pandemic. She has given invited talks in 18 countries on five continents. Hargittai holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Princeton University and a B.A. in sociology from Smith College.

Hargittai tweets @eszter and maintains a mailing list at bit.ly/E-LIST, and can be reached at , 320C Sherrerd Hall.