A New Chapter
We are delighted to announce that Corban Davis will be taking the helm as CITAP's Executive Director.
đWelcoming Corban Davis
CITAP is excited to announce that we have hired an Executive Director to join the team in early December: Corban Davis.
Corban is a dynamic leader driven to elevate impact through collaboration and efficiency. Prior to joining CITAP, Corban served as the Director of Operations for UNC's campus-wide Southern Futures initiative, showcasing project management and extensive networking prowess.
In this new capacity, Corban will provide strategic leadership for CITAP, collaborating with Principal Investigators on research and outreach priorities and overseeing day-to-day operations. Corban is a proud graduate of UNC Chapel Hillâs English and Comparative Literature Department. When not making new connections on campus, she can be found working on house renovations with her husband, John, or trading sunny spots with her rescue dog, Mr. Dudley.
Tressie McMillan Cottom, Alice Marwick, and Daniel Kreiss celebrated Corbanâs addition:
âCorban has built an incredibly successful portfolio with The Southern Futures program at UNC. I am thrilled that she is joining CITAP as our new Executive Director. It is an exciting time for our community. Corbanâs strategic vision and operational genius will undoubtedly deepen CITAPâs impact.â -Tressie
Corbanâs strategic vision and operational genius will undoubtedly deepen CITAPâs impact.
âWe are thrilled to welcome Corban to the CITAP team and are excited by the wealth of experience she brings at creating university spaces that build better futures. We look forward to Corban working hand in hand with our researchers to bring technology into the service of democracy.â -Daniel
âCorbanâs expertise, enthusiasm, and energy will help CITAP push the boundaries of academic research and drive transformative change in our field." -Alice
If you canât tell, we are thrilled about Corbanâs addition. I am very excited to welcome Corban as our new executive director. Her experience, positivity, and humor will be a fantastic fit for CITAP as we continue to grow new projects and initiatives.
đ˘Affiliate Highlights
đ˘How do the network structures where online public shaming (OPS) occurs affect its productivity? In âSocial Media, Social Control, and the Politics of Public Shaming,â affiliate Jennifer Forestal argues productive OPS is more likely in online contexts with closed network structures. Comparing the open network structure provided by Twitter/X with the closed network structures provided by Wikipedia and Reddit, Forestal reveals how considering network structures helps us understand the contexts where OPS is most likely to be productive, and what strategies can minimize more destructive forms of OPS.Â
While formal institutions enforce some norms, citizens informally enforce several norms. Informal social sanctions like public shaming work by motivating norm violators to take accountability for their actions and mend their behavior, and by deterring future norm violations from others. More productive public shaming is possible in more closed social networks, where group members hold stronger social ties. Several factors contribute to productive public shaming in closed social networks, including:Â Â
Public shaming requires recognition that shamers are authorized to sanction actions. In closed social networks, strong sense of community leads group members to have vested interests in exerting social control through sanctions like public shaming, and to recognize other membersâ authority to enact sanctions. Â
Effective public shaming requires targets to care about their reputations. In closed networks where group members share strong social ties, members are more likely to care about maintaining good reputations in the group.Â
Public shaming cannot be effective unless there is a clear path toward reintegration for norm violators. In closed social networks, shared values help norm violators understand how they can effectively apologize and atone for norm violations.Â
Forestal emphasizes that while the massive scale of many online platforms undoubtedly impacts how OPS operates, we need to look beyond scale to fully understand whether OPS will be productive of destructive across online contexts. By considering whether different network structures online are more open or closed, we can why some OPS impacts communities largely for the better while other OPS largely causes communities harm.  Â
đ˘Affiliate Stewart Coles spoke about âcopagandaâ and how police reality shows âquite literally ask us to take the perspective of police officers, often during police violence and arrestsâ in the Slate article âReality TV Copaganda Is Back and Worse Than Ever.â
We are hiring!
We are seeking a Postdoctoral Research Associate to join us and work with Dr. Francesca Tripodi and the Search Prompt Integrity & Learning Lab (SPILL). Read the full description here and share the posting!
Coming Soon
November
đ¨Today! November 14th at 1pm (online): Tressie McMillan Cottom will be a speaker in NYUâs âWhatâs Next after Affirmative Action for College Admissions?â Register to join virtually!