Homero Gil de Zuñiga is doctor in Political Science by the Universidad Europea de Madrid and also completed a Ph.D. in Mass Communication with a minor in Digital Media at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. His education includes the Oxford Internet Institute’s Summer Doctoral Program at University of Oxford.
Gil de Zuñiga serves as Distinguished Professor of Media Effects & AI at Penn State, as Distinguished Research Professor in Political Science at University of Salamanca, where he directs the Democracy Research Unit (DRU), and as a Senior Research Fellow at Universidad Diego Portales, Chile. Prior to these appointments he was the Medienwandel Professor at University of Vienna, an Associate Professor at the University of Texas - Austin, and a Research Fellow at several Institutions (i.e., Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University, Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University, and ASCoR’s McQuail Honorary Fellow at University of Amsterdam).
In general, his work draws from theoretically driven research, aiming to shed an empirical social scientific light over how social media, algorithms, AI, and other technologies affect society. Relying on survey, experimental, and computational methods his work seeks to clarify the way we understand some of today’s most pressing challenges for democracies.
He has published over a dozen books or volumes with prestigious academic publishers, including his latest (forthcoming) book Social Media Democracy Mirage with Cambridge University Press. Likewise, his work with over 160 ISI/JCR indexed peer-reviewed articles has been published in numerous academic journals such as (alphabetically): American Behavioral Scientist, American Politics Research, Communication Research, European Political Science Review, Computers in Human Behavior, Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, Digital Journalism, Human Communication Research, Information Communication & Society, The Information Society, International Journal of Communication, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, International Journal of Press/Politics, International Political Science Review, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Journal of Communication, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Journal of Information Technology & Politics, Journalism, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Journalism Practice, Journalism Studies, Mass Communication & Society, Media Psychology, New Media & Society, Politics, Political Behavior, Political Communication, Political Psychology, Social Media + Society Social, Social Science Computer Review, or Telematics & Informatics, among others.
He has presented over 200 articles at scientific meetings in the field of journalism, communication, political science, and psychology at different professional organizations and universities around the globe, receiving top paper research awards from the World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR), the International Symposium on Online Journalism (ISOJ), the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), the International Communication Association (ICA), and the American Political Science Association (APSA). Furthermore, he has held different administrative positions at several of these associations across these past years. In this capacity of expert, he also serves as ad hoc reviewer for over 60 scientific journals, and sits at over 20 Editorial Boards as for instance, Human Communication Research, International Journal of Communication, International Journal of Press/Politics, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Journal of Communication, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Journal of Information Technology & Politics, Journalism & Communication Monographs, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Profesional de la Información, Revista de Comunicación Política, Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, Social Media + Society, Social Science Computer Review, etc.
Gil de Zúñiga is recipient of the Pennsylvania State University Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Social and Behavioral Sciences, Fellow of the International Communication Association (ICA), Fellow of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Policy Lab, and recipient of the Krieghbaum Under-40 Award at the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication (AEJMC). He has been identified as one of the most prolific scholars in Political Communication and Social Media 2008/2018 (Sierra & Rodríguez-Virgili, 2020), one of the most bridging and central node Communication scholars in Latin America (Segado-Boj et al., 2021), and has been recognized as Thomson Reuters Clarivate Journal of Citation Reports (JCR) Highly Cited Scholar in 2020 and 2022.
In total he has received more than 60 grants, top paper research awards, and recognitions as principal investigator, co-principal investigator or as executive member, totaling nearly 5 million dollars. Lastly, his work serves to inform and help journalists in their reporting (i.e., USA Today, CNN, Al Jazeera, Radio Televisión Española, Dallas Morning News, El Tiempo (Colombia), ABC News, National Public Radio, FOX News and CBS News, National Review, The Atlantic, etc.
