As digital technology has grown to touch every aspect of society, a network of scholars, activists, and journalists has also arisen to study, critique, and mitigate the negative consequences of tech. These economic, political, and social harms range from online misinformation to data exploitation, political censorship, and economic and cultural marginalization.

But while the effects of technology are felt globally, discussions about solutions are too often framed only by a Euro-American lens. “The majority of the world is non-white and non-Western, but the media and academia often minimize these experiences in discussions about the impacts of technology in society,” says Seyram Avle, associate professor of communication at UMass Amherst. 

Consequently, the solutions proposed to technology-driven challenges are also Western-centric and don’t consider the lived experiences of those who are part of the global majority. 

“When we look to hold to account major tech platforms like Meta and Google, a lot of the solutions in the global majority to date have been siloed in individual countries,” Avle says. “But the power of these platforms is global, and we think solutions should be found on a collective level. To have leverage, we must look across different countries’ experiences, learn from their challenges, and find solutions that are [not only] attentive to unique situations but also to the commonalities between them.”

To this end, a group of scholars at UMass Amherst recently established the Global Technology for Social Justice (GloTech) Lab, home to collaborative projects and research-network grants supported by Luminate, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the National Science Foundation. The lab’s core faculty bring a diverse range of interdisciplinary perspectives and regional expertise—spanning places such as China, Ghana, the Philippines, Turkey, and Venezuela—and draw on fields including global media studies, science and technology studies, and computational social sciences. While the faculty are all based in the UMass Amherst Department of Communication, an inherently interdisciplinary and international department, GloTech Lab also employs collaborators across the UMass campus in public policy, computer science, and journalism, as well as several graduate student fellows. 

Supported by a 2023 Large-Scale Integrative Research Award from UMass, GloTech Lab marked its official launch in April 2024 by hosting a workshop, “Empowering Election Integrity in the Global Majority.” The event brought together 50 academics, civil society leaders, and journalists monitoring global elections around the world, including in Brazil, India, Kenya, the Philippines, South Africa, and the United States.  

The launch event, which emphasized South-to-South learning, was emblematic of the types of dialogues and collaborative research programs GloTech plans to lead in the future.

“We want to create safe and supportive spaces where a transnational network of scholars working in or from the global majority can exchange information in order to propose new solutions and governance frameworks to the global effects of technology on society,” says Jonathan Corpus Ong, associate professor of global digital media at UMass Amherst and inaugural director of GloTech.  

Avle, the lab's community lead, adds, “There is solidarity in learning and thinking together, even as we come from different vantage points. We want to be a space for academics and activists to learn from each other and co-produce knowledge that is beneficial on a global scale." 

GloTech Lab’s inaugural cohort includes five faculty leads, an inaugural postdoctoral fellow funded by the National Science Foundation, six graduate fellows, and faculty advisers from various units at UMass Amherst.

Beyond Borders, Bits, and Biases

GloTech Lab operates under the guiding principle, “Beyond Borders, Bits, and Biases.” In addition to being globally minded, the lab is human-centered and focused on the often-invisible people who power technology and those affected by it, particularly marginalized populations in the global majority. With regard to biases, says Ong, “Our approach is to really think through the intersectional politics of race, gender, and class as they relate to technology.”

This research falls into three main areas: geopolitics and the political economy of tech, global digital injustices, and tech for healing and resilience. GloTech scholars investigate technological norms, develop alternative models for tech design and governance, and map out transnational flows of tech policy, design thinking, and innovation across national and cultural borders. They also study various forms of digital harm, biases, and oppression related to technology—including online disinformation—and collaborate with community leaders, tech activists, journalists, and human rights defenders to champion bottom-up solutions that foster transnational solidarity, social justice, and racial justice worldwide.

For example, in his research, Ong conducts comparative research on disinformation industries in countries such as the Philippines, Thailand, and Brazil, focusing on the people carrying out this work and the impacts on elections in each country. At the lab’s launch event, scholars and activists from the Philippines and Brazil had an opportunity to share their experiences in their respective countries during recent election cycles featuring political strongmen, which had two different outcomes.  

“Instead of copy-pasting so-called solutions designed in Washington, D.C. or Brussels, our community of scholars is much more interested in learning from each other’s countries with similar historical experiences and institutional roadblocks as well as incredible resourcefulness and creativity in our civil society,” says Ong, who co-authored a strategy blueprint for global majority election coalitions.

Avle’s research explores digital technology entrepreneurship cultures and innovation across parts of Africa, China, and the United States. 

“My work seeks to destabilize assumptions about where the technology we use comes from and paints a more complete picture about who is involved in creating it," she explains. "Different regions are perceived to have different power and resources, and they play different roles in setting norms of what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ technology. “Who is setting the norms for these technologies? What policies are affecting them? Who’s doing the labor?” 

A Resource for Policymakers

Ultimately, GloTech Lab aspires to be the go-to center for global issues on technology and society and a resource for policymakers at the local, national, and transnational levels.

“For policymakers to protect consumers and citizens, it’s critical that they understand that the challenges we face are global and interconnected,” says Avle. As an example, she pointed to recent U.S. congressional debates over perceived threats posed by the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok.  

“We want to help inform these important discussions by offering a big-picture view of how social media functions at a global scale—of the connections between places like Silicon Valley, Shenzhen, the Philippines, and parts of Africa.”

This story was first published in May 2024.