2026 AoIR Legacy Lecture Series

The AoIR online lecture series gives members a way to connect beyond the annual conference and across time zones. Each lecture runs 30 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of Q&A and open discussion. These events are exclusive to active members of AoIR. To learn more about membership and join, visit members.aoir.org.

[PAST] Dr. Steve Jones — March 24, 2026
Dr. Steve Jones, one of AoIR’s founding members, kicked off the series. He’s a UIC Distinguished Professor of Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago, editor of New Media & Society, and co-editor of Mobile Media & Communication (both with SAGE). His research on the Internet’s social dimensions has been funded by the NSF, NIH, and CDC. Picking up this year’s conference theme of “Regenerations,” Dr. Jones spoke about how internet research has changed since AoIR’s founding, which questions have stuck around, and what “regeneration” might mean for the field now.

[PAST] Roundtable on Methods — April 13, 2026
Our second event brought together Annette N. Markham, Bernhard Rieder, and Axel Bruns for a roundtable on how internet research methods have changed over time. The session covered shifts in research practice: the rise and subsequent restriction of platform APIs and digital trace data, the emergence of AI-driven computational approaches, and the growing role of ethical and human-centered inquiry. The speakers reflected on the problems and possibilities shaping the current methodological landscape, and what the regeneration of methods might mean for internet research going forward.

[PAST] Dr. Nancy Baym — May 26, 2026
Dr. Nancy Baym is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research New England and a co-founder of AoIR. Her work examines how people build relationships and communities through digital media, with particular attention to music fans and the musicians who engage them online. She is the author of Personal Connections in the Digital Age and Playing to the Millions, and previously held a faculty position at the University of Kansas. She joined us for a conversation about her work, the history of AoIR, and the evolution of Internet Research. 

[PAST] Roundtable on Community — June 23, 2026
Our fourth event brought together Susanna Paasonen, Crystal Abidin, and Raquel Recuero for a roundtable on AoIR’s community—past, present, and future. The session took up what AoIR has been as a community, not only as an academic association. The speakers examined how the field’s structures have distributed participation unevenly—across the Global North and South, across languages, and across different conditions of access—and what it has meant to both study the internet and live those inequalities firsthand.

[PAST] Dr. Jennifer Stromer Galley — July 6, 2026
Prof. Stromer Galley’s research examines the intersection of artificial intelligence, political communication, and democratic processes. She joined us for a talk entitled “Controlled Interactivity Perfected: From Obama’s Innovation to Trump’s Manipulation in U.S. Digital Campaigning”, which examines the evolution of digital campaigning in U.S. presidential elections from 1996 to 2024, tracing a troubling arc from experimentation through maturation to manipulation.

[UPCOMING] Roundtable on Ethics — August 21, 2026
The sixth event and third roundtable brings together Charles Ess, Anja Bechmann, Alice Marwick, and Michael Zimmer for a roundtable reflecting on the evolution of ethics within AoIR and the field it has shaped. The session takes up the question of what ethics has meant for AoIR as the internet itself has changed: from the association’s first guidelines in 2002 to the 2019 publication of Internet Research: Ethical Guidelines 3.0, which extended earlier frameworks to address the ethical stakes of big data, AI, and the research lifecycle as a whole, including the protection of researchers themselves. The researchers will talk about how each iteration of the guidelines responded to shifting technologies, platforms, and research practices, and what it means to conduct ethical research in the field of Internet research.

The lecture will be 45 minutes long with 45 minutes of Q&A and discussion with the audience.

To learn more, register, and see the video archive of all our past lectures, visit https://members.aoir.org/Legacy-Talk-Series (login is required)