This is my personal blog on topics ranging from my academic research to issues of my fields of study and just about any idea that may be of interest to a few readers. My views do not necessarily represent those of any of the organisations with which I have been associated.

Since the summer of 2018, I have become an independent researcher, while continuing as an Emeritus Professor at the University of Southern California. I support the OII as an OII Senior Fellow and a member of their Advisory Board. I am also an Oxford Martin Fellow, working with Oxford University’s Global Cyber Security Capacity Center (GCSCC) based in the Department of Computer Science. In addition, I am a Research Fellow at the Quello Center at Michigan State University, and a member of their Advisory Board. Also, I am a Visiting Professor in the School of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds. You may contact me in Oxford on email at William.Dutton at gmail.com

From the autumn of 2014 until 2018, I was the Quello Professor of Media and Information Policy in the Department of Media and Information, which is in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University (MSU). While serving in this capacity, I was also Director of the Quello Center, a unit within the Department of Media and Information at MSU.

Prior to arriving at MSU, I was appointed in 2002 as the first Professor of Internet Studies at the University of Oxford where I was founding director of the Oxford Internet Institute, and a Fellow of Balliol College. I came to Oxford from the University of Southern California (USC), where I was a Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism from 1980-2002, when I moved to Oxford.

Before USC, I had other wonderful colleagues during appointments at SUNY-Buffalo, University of South Florida in Tampa, UC Irvine, and San Diego State University.

My most recent book is The Fifth Estate: The Power Shift of the Digital Age (OUP 2023). I am hopeful that this book will find a broad audience of those seriously interested in the political implications of the Internet. Other recent books include: Society and the Internet with Mark Graham (OUP 2014, with a 2019, 2nd edition), which has been useful for courses on the internet and society, The Oxford Handbook of Internet Studies (OUP 2013), four volumes on Politics and the Internet (Routledge 2014), and An Agenda for Digital Politics (Elgar 2020).  My next book will be an Advanced Introduction to Political Communication, which will enable me to bring examples in from the UK and USA elections of 2024.

Over the years, at the OII and Quello, I have been engaged in a number of organisations tied to communication policy and practice, including several terms as Chair of the Advisory Committee for England of the UK Office of Communications (Ofcom). At MSU, I consulted for the Michigan Association of Broadcasters, and have conducted work for the World Economic Forum both at Oxford and MSU. Presently, I am Director at the Portulans Institute, to support their research on national indicators, such as the Network Readiness Index and broaden the Institute in areas of the societal implications of networking. I am also a Trustee of the Archives of IT, a charitable organisation, a member of the Board of Directors of the TPRC, The Research Conference on Communications, Information and Internet Policy, a member of the Advisory Council of the Alexander Von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) in Berlin, on the Advisory Board of the Portulans Institute, an External Academic Advisor for the School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong, and was for a limited period on the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences Visiting Committee at Nanyang Technological University, and a Visiting Professor at Taylor’s University, Malaysia, for one year.