Lee Rainie is the former director of internet and technology research at Pew Research Center. Under his leadership, the Center has issued more than 800 reports based on its surveys and data-science analyses that examine people’s online activities and the internet’s role in their lives. The American Sociological Association gave Rainie its award for “excellence in the reporting on social issues” and described his work as the “most authoritative source of reliable data on the use and impact of the internet and mobile connectivity.”
Rainie is a co-author of Networked: The new social operating system and five books about the future of the internet that are drawn from the Center’s research. He regularly speaks to government officials, media outlets and leaders, scholars and students, technology executives, librarians, civic and nonprofit groups about the changing media ecosystem.
Prior to launching Pew Research Center’s technology research, Rainie was managing editor of U.S. News & World Report.
As robots, automation and artificial intelligence perform more tasks and there is massive disruption of jobs, experts say a wider array of education and skills-building programs will be created to meet new demands.
Lee Rainie discussed the Center’s latest findings about how people use social media, how they think about news in the Trump Era, how they try to establish and act on trust and where they turn for expertise in a period where so much information is contested.
Lee Rainie discussed his group’s latest findings about the role of libraries and librarians on April 3 at Innovative Users Group conference. The latest work shows that many people struggle to find the most trustworthy information and they express a clear hope that librarians can help them.
Lee Rainie, director of Internet, Science and Technology research at the Pew Research Center, presented new findings about how people have shifted to the mindset of lifelong learners and the implications of that for librarians.
Lee Rainie gave this speech about the new age of politics and media at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida on Feb. 16, 2017. He described what Donald Trump’s campaign and the dawn of the Trump presidency have taught us about the historic shifts in politics and media that have occurred in the last generation.
Lee Rainie, director of Internet, Science and Technology research at the Pew Research Center, discussed the Center’s latest findings on digital divides based a survey conducted from Sept. 29 to Nov. 6, 2016. The presentation was to the board of Feeding America. Rainie looked at differences tied to internet access, home broadband ownership, and smartphone ownership by several demographic measures, including household income, educational attainment, race and ethnicity, age, and community type. He also discussed the Center’s research related to “digital readiness gaps” among technology users.
Algorithms can save lives, make things easier and conquer chaos. But experts worry about governmental and corporate control of the data, and how algorithms can produce biased results and worsen digital divides.
Lee Rainie, Director of Internet, Science, and Technology research at the Pew Research Center, presented this material on December 12, 2016 to a working group at the National Academy of Sciences. The group is exploring how to think about creating an academic discipline around ‘data science.’
Lee Rainie and Dr. Cary Funk explain the type of research they do with Pew Research Center, as well as how the Center chooses what projects to tackle, in this video from SAGE.