New America Collaborates with Community Orgs to Examine Privacy and Poverty in the United States

Washington, DC — New America, a team of interdisciplinary researchers, and three community organizations have been announced as the winners of the largest of five grants announced today by the Digital Trust Foundation. The award of more than $700,000 will fund a study that examines the perspectives poor and working class adults in the United States hold about privacy and "data rights.”

Entitled “Between Resignation and Resilience: Digital Privacy and Data Flows in Vulnerable Neighborhoods,” the three-year project will include participatory, qualitative research with community partners in three cities—Center for Community Transitions (Charlotte, NC), Allied Media Projects (Detroit, MI), and Los Angeles Community Action Network/Stop LAPD Spying Coalition—and a national survey of adult low-income populations.

Virginia Eubanks (New America Fellow; Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, University at Albany, SUNY), Seeta Peña Gangadharan (incoming Assistant Professor, Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science; currently, Senior Research Fellow, New America’s Open Technology Institute), and Joseph Turow (Robert Lewis Shayon Professor of Communication, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania) will serve as co-Principal Investigators for this unique study.