Joshua Braun

Media, Technology & Culture, Media Criticism, Web Design for Journalists

Ph.D., Cornell University

Joshua Braun’s work examines social questions surrounding online media distribution—how choices about the way media and information should be circulated shape work in the media industries and influence who has access to culture on what terms. He is currently writing a book on this topic for The MIT Press. In recent years, he has also begun a second line of research into the ways problems with the digital advertising ecosystem affect the health of news media. His teaching focuses on the media industries, media technologies, and the intersection of media, technology, and culture—all with an emphasis on what these topics mean for journalism and journalists. He has been a finalist for the university's Distinguished Teaching Award and a recipient of a major teaching grant from the Five College Consortium.

Braun is co-editor of Distribution Matters, a series of books published by The MIT Press on topics related to media distribution. He also serves on the editorial board of the journals Media Industries and Social Media & Society, and was a founding member of the “Culture Digitally” NSF working group on cultural production in the digital age.

Braun received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Communication from Cornell University, where his work earned him the Anson E. Rowe award for research productivity, teaching excellence, and service to the community. He also holds a master’s in Bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania and an individual-concentration bachelor’s degree in “Sciences in the Media” from the University of California Santa Barbara, where he graduated with honors. Braun is a former science journalist, having worked as a junior editor for Seed Magazine and contributed to WNYC’s Radio Lab. He is an affiliated fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School and a former graduate fellow of the National Academy of Sciences.
 

New & Selected Publications

Book

Braun, J.A. (2015). This program is brought to you by… : Distributing television news online. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. [Link]

Other Selected Publications

Braun, J. A. (2023). Normal Accidents in the Digital Age. In M. P. McAllister & E. West, The Routledge Companion to Advertising and Promotional Culture (2nd ed., pp. 261–273). Routledge. [Link]

Braun, J. A. (2021). Points of Origin: Asking Questions in Distribution Research. In P. McDonald, C. Brannon Donoghue & T. Havens, Digital Media Distribution: Portals, Platforms, Pipelines (pp. 27–46). NYU Press. [Link]

Braun, J.A., Coakley, J.D. & West, E. (2019). Activism, advertising, and far-right media: The case of Sleeping Giants. Media and Communication, 7(4), 68–79. [Link]

Braun, J.A. & Eklund, J.L. (2019). Fake news, real money: Ad tech platforms, profit-driven hoaxes, and the business of journalism. Digital Journalism, 7(1), 1–21. [Link]

Braun, J.A. (2015). Social media and distribution studies. Social Media & Society, 1(1).

Braun, J.A. (2015). News programs: Designing MSNBC.com’s online interfaces. Journalism, 16(1), 27–43.

Braun, J.A. (2014). Transparent intermediaries: Building the infrastructures of connected viewing. In J. Holt & K. Sanson (Eds.), Connected Viewing: Selling, Streaming & Sharing Media in the Digital Era (pp. 124–143). New York: Routledge. [Link]

Braun, J.A. (2013). Going over the top: Online television distribution as sociotechnical system.
Communication, Culture & Critique 6(3), 432–458. [link]

Braun, J.A. & Niederdeppe, J. (2012). Disruption and identity maintenance in risk information
seeking and processing. Communication Theory 22(2), 138–162. [link]

Braun, J.A. & Gillespie, T. (2011). Hosting the public discourse, hosting the public: When online news
and social media converge. Journalism Practice, 5(4), 383–398. [link]