We explore how the ownership, location, and use of media and information technologies impacts diverse communities.

The Global Media Technologies and Cultures Lab (GMTaC)

The GMTaC Lab is a space for collaborative research that explores the use of media and information technologies in diverse international contexts. Our projects link the usage of these technologies to issues of geopolitics, social and environmental justice, and creative expression. Researchers in our lab use fieldwork, community engagement, mapping, art collaborations, and critical analysis to investigate the usage of media technologies in urban and rural settings in different parts of the world.

We believe there is much to learn about media and information technologies beyond the centers of industrial and political power, and are particularly interested in working with marginalized or underserved communities. The lab offers a professional work environment for graduate and undergraduate student researchers who actively participate on our research teams. We hope that next generation technologies can become more attuned to principles of design justice and serve a broader array of public interests. The GMTaC Lab was founded at MIT by Professor Lisa Parks in 2016, and moved to University of California at Santa Barbara in 2020.