Associate Professor
Department of Communication
School of Communication and Information
Rutgers University

Matthew Weber is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, School of Communication and Information, Rutgers University. Matthew is a computational social scientist and an expert on media ecosystems, communities, local news and the use of large-scale digital data in research. He is currently leading several studies, including ongoing work examining local communities and misinformation, and a multi-year study examining how policy stakeholders navigate complex information ecosystems in order to identify policy relevant knowledge.

Other recent work includes a large-scale longitudinal project mapping the health of local news and the impact of local news on communities. Additional research includes an examination of the role of technology in local news organizations, and the effectiveness of adopting social media within organizations. Matthew has studied change strategies employed by media organizations, and the interconnection between news media content and policymaking processes. He has also examined how news media organizations adapt to new technology through changes in media production as well as changes in hiring patterns

Matthew’s work is funded by the National Science Foundation, William T. Grant Foundation, Institute of Museum and Library Services, News Media Alliance and others. Matthew’s work has been widely published in leading academic journals, as well as in the popular press. He is an expert in network analysis, mixed methods and big data analysis. Matthew received his PhD in 2010 from the Annenberg School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Southern California.