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Research

I try to keep it up, but this list is often out of date. You can also try my lab group or my blog.

Major research areas:

1. Algorithm Auditing / AI Auditing.
2. New Technological Infrastructures and Public Policy.
3. Appropriation and User-Driven Innovation.

Books, Articles, Chapters, Papers, and Published Interviews

Marquand House Collective. (in press). Auditing AI. MIT Press.

AoIR Risky Research Working Group. (in press). Risky Research: An AoIR Guide to Researcher Protection and Safety. Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR).

Dunagan, L., Zheng, K. Y., Sandvig, C., & Gilbert, E. (2025). (Promises of) Platform Permanence: How People Die on Legacy.com. Annual Meeting of the Society for the Social Study of Science (4S), Seattle, WA, USA.

Hsu, S., Koshy, V., Vaccaro, K., Sandvig, C., & Karahalios, K. (2025). Placebo Effect of Control Settings in Feeds Are Not Always Strong. Proceedings of the 43rd Annual SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). (Awarded Best Paper)

International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE). (2024). Global Approaches to Auditing Artificial Intelligence. Scientific Panel on Global Standards for AI Audits. IPIE: Zürich, Switzerland.

Aidinoff, M., Boczkowski P., Cameron L., Kapila K., Kelly A., Krupar, S., Llamas-Rodriguez, J., Nakamura, L., Nelson, A., Nieborg, D., Sandvig, C., Ticona, J., Weigel, M. Wohl, H., and Ziewitz, M. (2024). Five Theses on the Gravity of Platforms, School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study.

Metaxa, D., Park, J. S., Robertson, R. E., Karahalios, K., Wilson, C., Hancock, J., & Sandvig, C. (2022). Guidelines for Algorithm Auditing. Paper presented to the 72th annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Paris, France.

Metaxa, D., Park, J. S., Robertson, R. E., Karahalios, K., Wilson, C., Hancock, J., & Sandvig, C. (2021). Auditing algorithms: Understanding algorithmic systems from the outside in. Foundations and Trends in Human–Computer Interaction, 14 (4): 272-344.

Brueckner, S., Calvo-Quirós, W. A., Granzow, J., Newell, C., Ngai, T. L., & Sandvig, C. (2021, October). Alexa, What Should We Do? Annual Meeting of the Society for the Social Study of Science (4S), Toronto, Canada. (Performance.) (Authors listed alphabetically.)

Vaccaro, K., Sandvig, C., & Karahalios, K. (2020). "At the End of the Day Facebook Does What It Wants:" How Users Experience Contesting Algorithmic Content Moderation. (CSCW 2020). Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 4(CSCW2): 167:1-22.

Asplund, J., Eslami, M., Hari Sundaram, H., Sandvig, C., & Karahalios, K. (2020). Auditing Race and Gender in Online Housing Markets. (ICWSM 2020). Proceedings of the International Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Conference on Web and Social Media 14(1): 24-35.

Grill, G. & Sandvig, C. (2019, September). The science of "civil unrest prediction" meets social media. Annual Meeting of the Society for the Social Study of Science (4S), New Orleans, LA, USA.

Vaccaro, K., Huang, D., Eslami, M., Sandvig, C., Hamilton, K., & Karahalios, K. (2018). The Illusion of Control: Placebo Effects of Control Settings. (CHI 2018). Proceedings of the 36th Annual SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM): 16.

Eslami, M., Kumaran, S. R. K., Sandvig, C., Karahalios, K. (2018). Communicating Algorithmic Process in Online Behavioral Advertising. (CHI 2018). Proceedings of the 36th Annual SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM): 432. (13 pp.)

Sandvig, C. (2018). Как изучать инфраструктуру: Лекция Кристиана Сэндвига [How to study infrastructure: An interview with Christian Sandvig], (P. Kolozaridi & L. Yuldashev, trans.) «История Интернета» ["Internet History"]. Онлайн-школа интернет-исследований'18. Moscow: Клуб любителей интернета и общества. (in Russian).

Plantin, J.-C., Lagoze, C., Edwards, P. N., & Sandvig, C. (2018). Infrastructure studies meet platform studies. New Media & Society 20(1): 293-310. (link to preprint).

Plantin, J.-C., Lagoze, C., Edwards, P. N., & Sandvig, C. (2017). Big data is not about size: when data transform scholarship. In: Clément Mabi, Jean-Christophe Plantin, & Laurence Monnoyer-Smith (eds.), Open, Share, Reuse: Critical views on digital data / Ouvrir, Partager, Réutiliser: Regards critiques sur les données numériques. Paris: Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme. (online open access as a Web page)

Sandvig, C. (2016). Auditing Algorithms. (Interview with Kyle Polich). Data Skeptic. (Audio recording, ~42m.)

Sandvig, C., Hamilton, K., Karahalios, K., & Langbort, C. (2016). When the Algorithm Itself is a Racist: Diagnosing Ethical Harm in the Basic Components of Software. International Journal of Communication 10: 4972-4990.

Eslami, M., Karahalios, K., Sandvig, C., Vaccaro, K., Rickman, A., Hamilton, K., & Kirlik, A. (2016). First I "like" it, then I hide it: Folk Theories of Social Feeds. Proceedings of the 34th Annual SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM): 2371-2382.

Soeller, G., Karahalios, K., Sandvig, C., & Wilson, C. (2016). MapWatch: Detecting and Monitoring International Border Personalization on Online Maps. Proceedings of the 25th Annual World Wide Web (WWW) Conference, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM): 867-878.

Sandvig, C. (2015). The Internet as the Anti-Television: Distribution Infrastructure as Culture and Power. In: L. Parks and N. Starosielski (eds.), Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructures, pp. 225-245. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. (Best Edited Collection Award, Society for Cinema and Media Studies [SCMS], 2015-2016)

Sandvig, C. & Hargittai, H. (2015). How to Think About Digital Research. In: E. Hargittai & C. Sandvig (eds.), Digital Research Confidential, pp. 1-28. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Hargittai, E. & Sandvig, C. (eds.), Digital Research Confidential. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Lagoze, C., Edwards, P. N., Sandvig, C., & Plantin, J.-C. (2015). Should I Stay or Should I Go? Alternative Infrastructures in Scholarly Publishing. International Journal of Communication 9: 1052-1071.

Eslami, M., Rickman, A., Vaccaro, K., Aleyasen, A., Vuong, A., Karahalios, K., Hamilton, K., and Sandvig, C. (2015). "I always assumed that I wasn't really that close to [her]:" Reasoning about invisible algorithms in the news feed. Proceedings of the 33rd Annual SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM): 153-162. (Awarded Best Paper)

Sandvig, C., Hamilton, K., Karahalios, K., & Langbort, C. (2015). Can an Algorithm be Unethical? Paper presented to the 65th annual meeting of the International Communication Association, San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA.

Sandvig, C. (2015). Seeing the Sort: The Aesthetic and Industrial Defense of "The Algorithm." Media-N 11(1): 35-51.

Vaccaro, K., Karahalios, K., Sandvig, C., Hamilton, K., and Langbort, C. (2015). Agree or Cancel? Research and Terms of Service Compliance. Paper presented to the Ethics Workshop of the 18th Annual Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW).

Eslami, M., Aleyasen, A., Karahalios, K., Hamilton, K., and Sandvig, C. (2015). FeedVis: A Path for Exploring News Feed Curation Algorithms. Software demo presented to the 18th Annual Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW).

Hamilton, K., Karahalios, K., Sandvig, C. & Eslami, M. (2014). A Path to Understanding the Effects of Algorithm Awareness. In CHI Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (alt.CHI). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 631-642.

Sandvig, C., Hamilton, K., Karahalios, K., & Langbort, C. (2014). An Algorithm Audit. In: Seeta Peña Gangadharan (ed.), Data and Discrimination: Collected Essays, pp. 6-10. Washington, DC: New America Foundation.

Sandvig, C., Hamilton, K., Karahalios, K., & Langbort, C. (2014). Auditing Algorithms: Research Methods for Detecting Discrimination on Internet Platforms. Paper presented to "Data and Discrimination," a pre-conference of the 64th annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Seattle, WA, USA.

Hamilton, K., Karahalios, K., Sandvig, C., & Langbort, C. (2014). "The Image of the Algorithmic City: a Research Approach." Interaction Design and Architecture(s) (IxDA) 20.

Sandvig, C., Hamilton, K., Karahalios, K., & Langbort, C. (2013). "Re-Centering the Algorithm," Paper presented to "Governing Algorithms: A Conference on Computation, Automation, and Control," New York University, New York, NY, USA.

Sandvig, C. (2013). The Internet as Infrastructure. In: W. Dutton (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Internet Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sandvig, C. (2012). What are Community Networks an Example of? A Response. In: A. Clement, G. Longford, & M. Gurstein (eds.) Enabling Communities in the Information Age. Edmonton: Athabasca University Press.

Sandvig, C. (2012). Connection at Ewiiaapaayp Mountain: Indigenous Internet Infrastructure. In: L. Nakamura & P. Chow-White (eds.) Race After the Internet. New York: Routledge.

Sandvig, C. (2011). Spectrum Miscreants, Vigilantes, and Kangaroo Courts: The Return of the Wireless Wars. Federal Communication Law Journal 63(2): 481-506. https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/fclj/vol63/iss2/7/

Gilbert, E., Karahalios, K. & Sandvig, C. (2010). The Network in the Garden: Designing Social Media for Rural Life. American Behavioral Scientist, 53 (9): 1367-1388.

Sandvig, C. (2009). How Technical is Technology Research? In E. Hargittai (ed.), Research Confidential: Solutions to Problems Most Social Scientists Pretend They Never Have, pp. 141-163. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Bar, F & Sandvig, C. (2009). Política de comunicações dos Estados Unidos pós-convergência. Revista de Direito, Estado e Telecomunicações, 1(1). http://www.getel.org/GETELSEER/index.php/redetel/article/viewFile/7/6 (translation of: US Communication Policy After Convergence.)

Sandvig, C. (2008). Wireless Play and Unexpected Innovation. In T. McPherson (ed.), Digital Youth, Innovation, and the Unexpected: The MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning, pp. 77-97. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Bar, F. & Sandvig, C. (2008). US Communications Policy After Convergence. Media, Culture, & Society 30(1): 531-550.

Shah, R. & Sandvig, C. (2008). Defaults as De Facto Regulation: The Case of Wireless Access Points. Information, Communication, and Society 11(1): 25-46.

Gilbert, E., Karahalios, K. & Sandvig, C. (2008). The Network in the Garden: An Empirical Analysis of Social Media in Rural Life. Proceedings of the 26th Annual SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM): 1603-1612. (Awarded Best Paper)

Sandvig, C. (2008). Neutralidade da Rede: e o nova via pública. PoliTICs 2. Rio de Janeiro, Brasil: Nupef/Rits Center for Research, Studies and Capacity Building of the Information Network for the Third Sector. (translation of: Network Neutrality is the New Common Carriage.)

Sandvig, C. (2007). The RED Project: Rendering Electromagnetic Distributions. Vectors: Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular 3(1).

Sandvig, C. (2007). Network Neutrality is the New Common Carriage. Info: The Journal of Policy, Regulation, and Strategy 9(2/3): 136-147.

Sandvig, C. (2007). Az internet szerkezeti problémái a kultúrpolitika nézopontjából. (Bodo Balazs, tr.). In: HALÁCSY Péter, VÁLYI Gábor, and Barry WELLMAN (szerk.), Hatalom a mobiltömegek kezében, pp. 65-78. Budapest, Hungary: Typotex. (translation of: The Structural Problems of the Internet for Cultural Policy.)

Sandvig, C. (2006). Access to the Electromagnetic Spectrum is a Foundation for Development. In: M. Harvey (ed.) Media Matters: Perspectives on Advancing Governance and Development, (pp. 50-54). Paris: Internews. (free republishing and reproduction)

Sandvig, C. (2006). The Structural Problems of the Internet for Cultural Policy. IN: D. Silver (ed.). Critical Cyberculture Studies, pp. 107-118. New York: New York University Press.

Sandvig, C. (2006). Shaping Infrastructure and Innovation on the Internet: The End-to-End Network that isn't (link to draft version). In D. Guston & D. Sarewitz (eds.), In D. Guston & D. Sarewitz (eds.), Shaping Science and Technology Policy: The Next Generation of Research, pp. 234-255. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Sandvig, C. (2006). The Internet at Play: Child Users of Public Internet Connections. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11 (4). Published version available free online: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.00302.x

Sandvig, C. (2006). Disorderly Infrastructure and the Role of Government. (Discussion.) Government Information Quarterly 23(3/4): 503-506.

Sandvig, C. (2005). Interview with Matthew Yapchaian. In: "5 NAMES. 5 PEOPLE. 5 TERMS." Ninth Letter 2(2) 129-143.

Sandvig, C. (2005). The Return of the Broadcast War. Paper presented at the 33rd Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (TPRC) on Communication, Information, and Internet Policy, Arlington, Virginia, USA.

Sandvig, C. & Shah, R. (2005). Defaults as De Facto Regulation: The Case of Wireless Access Points. Paper presented at the 33rd Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (TPRC) on Communication, Information, and Internet Policy, Arlington, Virginia, USA.

Sandvig, C. & Hall, H. (2005). Moments from Wi-Fi Subculture. Paper presented to the 55th annual meeting of the International Communications Association, New York, NY, USA.

Sandvig, C., Young, D., & Meinrath, S. (2004). Hidden Interfaces to "Ownerless" Networks. Paper presented to the 32nd Annual Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (TPRC) on Communication, Information and Internet Policy, Arlington, Virginia, USA.

Sandvig, C. (2004). An Initial Assessment of Cooperative Action in Wi-Fi Networking. Telecommunications Policy 28(7/8): 579-602.

Sandvig, C. & Verhulst, S. (2004). The Internet and Public Policy in Comparative Perspective (link to draft version). IN: H. F. Nissenbaum & M. Price (eds.). The Academy and the Internet. New York: Peter Lang. [Buy the book from the publisher. Read the table of contents from the editor.]

Sandvig, C. (2004, May). Welcome to 1927: The Creation of Property Rights and Internet Domain Name Policy in Historical Perspective. IN: P. Day & D. Schuler (eds.), Community Practice in the Network Society: Local Action/Global Interaction. New York: Routledge. [buy the book from Amazon.]

Sandvig, C. (2004). What We Talk About When We Talk About Wi-Fi. Paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the International Communications Association, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.

Sandvig, C. (ed.) (2003). Special Issue: Policy, Politics, and the Local Internet. The Communication Review 6(3). (Here are many more details about this special issue, including the full text of my essay.)

Sandvig, C. (2003). Public Internet Access for Young Children in the Inner City: Evidence to Inform Access Subsidy and Content Regulation (big PDF -- 2.3 MB). The Information Society 19(2): 171-183.

Sandvig, C. (2003, September). Assessing Cooperative Action in 802.11 Networks (external link). Paper presented at the 31st Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (TPRC) on Communication, Information and Internet Policy, Arlington, Virginia, USA.

Sandvig, C. (2002, November). Communication Infrastructure and Innovation: The Internet as End-to-End Network that Isn't. Paper prepared for the AAAS/Columbia/Rutgers Joint Research Symposium with the Next Generation of Leaders in Science and Technology Policy, Washington, DC, USA.

Sandvig, C. (2002, October). Internet Policy From Below: Toward Grounded Regulation. Paper presented at the meeting of the Association of Internet Researchers, Maastricht, The Netherlands.

Sandvig, C. & Lim, S. (2002, July). Between the Highway and the PC-bahng: South Korean and US Internet Infrastructure Policy Compared. Paper presented at the meeting of the International Communication Association, Seoul, South Korea.

Sandvig, C. (2001, December). The Socio-Political Implications of End-to-End. Paper presented at the 2001 conference for Computer Ethics Philosophical Enquiries (CEPE), Lancaster, UK.

Sandvig, C. (2001). Unexpected Outcomes in Digital Divide Policy: What Children Really Do in the Public Library (link to draft version). IN: B. M. Compaine and S. Greenstein (eds.), Communications Policy in Transition: The Internet and Beyond. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp. 265-293. [Buy the book from Amazon.]

Chaffee, S., Saphir, M.N., Graf, J., Sandvig, C. & Hahn, K.S. (2001, July-September). Attention to Counter-Attitudinal Messages in a State Election Campaign. Political Communication 18(3).

Sandvig, C. (2000, September). The Internet disconnect in children's policy: A user study of outcomes for Internet access subsidies and content regulation. Paper presented at the 28th Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (TPRC) on Communication,Information and Internet Policy, Alexandria, Virginia, USA. (First Prize Paper).

Bar, F. & Sandvig, C. (2000, September). Rules From Truth: Post-Convergence Policy for Access. Paper presented at the 28th Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (TPRC) on Communication, Information and Internet Policy, Alexandria, Virginia, USA.

Sandvig, C. & Murase, E.M. (2000, September). Social Research Through the Unobtrusive Observation of Network Data: Methodological and Ethical Challenges. Paper presented at the meeting of the Association of Internet Researchers, Lawrence, Kansas, USA.

Sandvig, C., Saphir, M.N., & Chaffee, S. (2000, August). Co-use and co-processing of news media in the family: An explication and empirical validation Paper presented at the meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Phoenix, Arizona, USA. (Awarded Top Paper [Division]).

Sandvig, C. (2000, June). The Information Apologue: Play and Internet access in the children's library. Paper presented at the meeting of the International Communication Association, Acapulco, Mexico. (Awarded Top Four Paper [Division]).

Sandvig, C. (2000, May). Welcome to 1927: The creation of property rights and Internet domain name policy in historical perspective. In Shaping the network society: The future of the public sphere in cyberspace. Symposium in the Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing (DIAC) series, Seattle, Washington, USA.

Chaffee, S.H., Saphir, M.N., Graf, J., Sandvig, C.,& Hahn, K.S. (1999, August). Attention to Counter-Attitudinal Messages in the 1998 Election Campaign. Paper presented at the meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.

Murase, E.M., Boutilier, S., & Sandvig, C. (1999, February). Strategies for promoting access to the Internet among children and youth: A case study of the San Francisco Public Library's Electronic Library Project. In Proceedings of INET 1999: The Internet Global Summit. Reston, VA: The Internet Society.

Sandvig, C. (1998, June). Property rights and Internet policy: Lessons from the history of broadcasting. Paper presented at the meeting of the Union for Democratic Communications, San Francisco, California, USA.

Sandvig, C. (1997, May). The Netizen: Wired's conception of computer-mediated culture. Paper presented at the Western Region Student's Conference in Rhetorical Criticism, Hayward, California, USA.

Sandvig, C. (1996, April). The Internet as a radical departure from traditional publishing models.Paper presented at the 7th Undergraduate Research Conference of the University of California, Davis, California, USA.