UW Information School Assistant Professor Karine Barzilai-Nahon has been named to the editorial board of the journal The Information Society (TIS). Published since 1981, TIS is one of the most prestigious journals in the field of information science and a critical forum for leading edge analysis of the impacts, policies, system concepts, and methodologies related to information technologies and changes in society and culture.

The TIS board is composed of an international group of leaders in the field of information science, and provides editorial guidance for the journal David L. Holzman, Stephen J. Lukasik, both at the Rand Corporation at the time, and Richard O. Mason, then at U.C.L.A., formed the journal in response to the need for a new venue to deal with the broad social issues soon to be created by the information age.

"I first got to know Karine’s work when she submitted her paper ‘Cultured Technology: The Internet and Religious Fundamentalism,’ co-authored with Gad Barzilai, to The Information Society," said Dr. Harmeet Sawhney, Editor-in-Chief of TIS. "The paper was very unique: it focused on a much neglected topic—religion on the Internet; it drew on a huge data set of users; and it offered very interesting insights into the Internet use by the ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in Israel. While this paper left a deep impression, individual contributions of the two co-authors were not clear.

"I was blown away by her next paper ‘Gaps and Bits: Conceptualizing Measurements for Digital Divide/s.’ She not only provided an incisive critique of the sprawling literature on digital divide but also offered an elegant framework for future research. Her paper was part of a special section organized by Michel Menou and Richard Taylor in which they issued a ‘grand challenge’ for better metrics for information societies. Soon we started seeing many manuscripts on metrics and felt the need for an additional associate editor, who had the relevant expertise. Karine was just the right person because she has shown tremendous intellectual leadership in a sure-handed way, even though she is in the early stages of her career. We are delighted that she agreed to serve on our editorial board," Sawhney added.

"I consider it to be a great honor to be appointed as an associate editor to the The Information Society," said Dr. Barzilai-Nahon. "It is one of the most important forums for scholarship in our field because it nurtures excellence, interdisciplinarity and tolerance towards different research methods and theories. I look forward to being a part of that."

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