Faculty Name:Diami Virgilio, PhD

Areas of Interest

• Political economy of media
• Influencer politics
• Virtual social life through virtual and mixed reality interfaces
• Critical and cultural theories of the digital
• Race, ethnicity, and identity in communication
• Media literacy
• Nonprofit communication

Diami Virgilio’s research concerns the relations between information and communication technologies shape and social life. This interest has led him to study how people make politics and culture through identity signals, influence campaigns, deliberation, and worldmaking in virtual spaces. A native New Yorker, Dr. Virgilio spent eighteen years in the nonprofit social service sector working with youth and families in the South Bronx prior to coming to academia. Dr. Virgilio teaches courses that take a critical approach to understanding media industries and the role they play in society. He also runs the Mount’s Virtual Life Lab which studies the social worlds of virtual and mixed realities.

Courses

• COMM 120 Intro to Media Studies
• COMM 230 Media Writing
• COMM 370 Media and Publics
• COMM 333 New Media and Society
• COMM 470 Race and Media

Publications

• McCammon, M., Virgilio, D. et al. (2022) Dead and dying platforms, a roundtable. Internet Histories. 6:1-2, 14-30.
• Virgilio, D. (2022) A Turn to Gandy from Inside The Panoptic Sort. International Journal of Communication, 16, 5.
• Virgilio, D. (2022) What comparisons between Second Life and the metaverse miss. Slate
• Turow, J., Hennessy, M., Draper, N., Akanbi, O., and Virgilio, D. (2018). Divided We Feel: Partisan Politics Drive Americans Emotions Regarding Surveillance of Low-Income Populations. A Report from the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, pp 1-31.

Professional Associations

• Association of Internet Researchers
• International Communication Association
• Union for Democratic Communications