About me

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Matthew Salzano presenting a workshop on creating Twitter Bots—October 21, 2019, at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Hi! I’m Matthew. I’m a scholar, teacher, and communicator. I work at the intersection(s) of digital media, social movements, and rhetoric and communication theory.

I’m a Ph.D. candidate in Rhetoric and Political Culture in the Department of Communication at the University of Maryland, where I also received my M.A. and a graduate certificate in Digital Studies in the Arts and Humanities. I’m working on a dissertation entitled “Living a Participatory Life: Reformatting Rhetoric in Demanding, Digital Times” that addresses digital participation in civic life under conditions intensified by algorithmic publics and surveillance capitalism. My scholarship has appeared in Critical Studies in Media Communication, Women’s Studies in Communication, AoIR Selected Papers in Internet Research, and Communication Teacher.

I teach courses about public speaking, public deliberation, digital media, social justice, and rhetorical criticism. I just returned to Maryland after serving as the on-site director for Pacific Lutheran University’s International Honors program at the University of Oxford, where I taught a seminar to PLU honors students entitled “Digital Identities, Digital Politics.” At Maryland, I previously taught “Digital Culture and Civic Life”—an upper-level communication course that explores the relationship of media-making, emotions, and ethics.

I have also worked as a freelance copy editor, Twitter bot-creatorvideo producer, and journalist.

Please feel free to explore my posts to see my work. You can also view my CV on Academia.edu.

You can reach me on Twitter @matthew_paul or via email at mattsalzano (AT) gmail (DOT) com.