Emma L. Briant

Visiting Associate Professor

Contact:

574.631.8640 | ebriant@nd.edu

Biography

Emma L. Briant, Ph.D. is a leading researcher and expert on contemporary propaganda and information warfare, and its ethics, governance and evolution in an age of mass-surveillance. She is a Visiting Associate Professor at the Lucy Family Institute for Data and Society, at Notre Dame University. Dr. Briant is a British scholar who held prior faculty roles at Monash University, Australia; Bard College; University of Essex; and University of Sheffield, in the UK. Dr. Briant has three books, Bad News for Refugees, (Pluto Press, with Philo and Donald, 2013), Propaganda and Counter-Terrorism: Strategies for Global Change (Manchester University Press, 2015), and the Routledge Handbook on the Influence Industry (Routledge, co-edited with Vian Bakir, 2024).

Dr. Briant was central in revealing the Cambridge Analytica-Facebook scandal in 2018 — this research formed the basis for important evidence submitted to the U.K. Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee inquiry into “fake news” and the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2018 among other international public inquiries. 

Dr. Briant’s research, testimony and solutions on media, technology, and the rapid evolution of surveillant propaganda and its implications for democracy, security and human rights have informed civil society organizations, government agencies, industry, the UN, US Congress, UK Parliament, Canadian Parliament and European Parliament among others.

In addition to scholarly publications, she regularly contributes to major journalism outlets and is finalizing her next book Propaganda Machine. She was Senior Researcher for the Oscar-shortlisted documentary ‘The Great Hack’.

Dr Briant is an honorary Associate at University of Cambridge’s Centre for Financial Reporting and Accountability, and remains an a Fellow at Bard College. She has also held prestigious visiting roles at American University, Stanford University, Georgetown University, George Washington University.

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