Biography
Michael Zimmer is the Microsoft Resident Fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School for 2007-2008. He received his PhD in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University under the guidance of Profs. Helen Nissenbaum, Alex Galloway, and Siva Vaidhyanathan.
With a background in new media and Internet studies, the philosophy of technology, and science and technology studies, Zimmer’s research explores social, political, and ethical dimensions of new media and information technologies, with particular focus on Web search engines, Web 2.0 infrastructures, and how new media and Internet technologies impact global information flows, access to knowledge, and informational privacy. He has published and delivered talks across North America and Europe on the ethical and value implications of web search engines, Web 2.0, networked vehicle information systems, and other information technologies.
Zimmer’s dissertation, “The Quest for the Perfect Search Engine: Values, Technical Design, and the Flow of Personal Information in Spheres of Mobility,” investigates of how the quest for the “perfect search engine” empowers the widespread capture of personal information flows across the Internet, threatening the ability to engage in online social, cultural, and intellectual activities free from answerability and oversight, thereby bearing on the values of privacy, autonomy, and liberty.
Zimmer earned a B.B.A. in Marketing from the University of Notre Dame in 1994 and worked for an electronic payment processing company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for several years before moving to New York City to pursue his graduate education. He earned an M.A. in Media Ecology from NYU in 2002, and his doctoral studies were supported by the Phyllis and Gerald LeBoff Doctoral Fellowship in Media Ecology from the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University. His dissertation research was supported by an NSF SES Dissertation Improvement Grant.
View or download Michael’s CV here.
View Michael’s Yale Law School faculty profile here.
Web Search: Multi-
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