Prof. Dr. Bolsover completed their PhD at the University of Oxford’s Oxford Internet Institute, studying how the commercialisation of online spaces affected their ability to be a venue for political speech in both democratic and authoritarian political systems. Following this, they worked as a postdoctoral researcher on the Computational Propaganda Project at the Oxford Internet Institute, co-authoring one of the first pieces of academic research on the prevalence of bots, misinformation and hyper-partisan content in the US 2016 election. Their case study of computational propaganda in and about China was one of a series of nine-case country studies for which the project team was awarded the Vaclav Havel (now Madeleine K. Albright) Democracy Award by the United States National Democratic Institute for "ground-breaking research into the use of social media and computational propaganda." Joining the University of Leeds as a Lecturer in Politics and Media in 2018, they used cutting edge computational social science techniques to collect and analyse large volumes of social media data, studying political discourse, policy and action in the US-COVID crisis, Black Lives Matter Movement and US presidential election in the summer of 2020; authoritarian populism, ethnoreligious nationalism and political mobilisation in the 2019 Indian General election; and the Chinese state’s colonisation of environmental discourse and construction of mobilizable nationalism. In 2023, they joined the University of Potsdam funded by a 2.2€ million grant from the GIZ (German Development Corporation). They have been invited to speak to representatives of the UK, Singaporean, Australian, Belgian and German governments, as well as NATO and the EU, and have advised Facebook on their policies related to newsworthy content and had their research referenced in the US Senate Committee on Intelligence’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. 

Research Focus 

• Politics and society in the Internet age 

• Global and comparative research  

• Research impact 

Publications 

Journal Articles 

• Bolsover, G. (2022). Indian Democracy Under Threat: The BJP’s Online Authoritarian Populism as a Means to Advance an Ethnoreligious Nationalist Agenda in the 2019 General Election. International Journal of Communication, 16(2022), 1940–1968. DOI: 1932–8036/20220005 
• Goron, C, and Bolsover, G. (2020). Engagement or control? The Impact of the Chinese Environmental Protection Bureaus’ Burgeoning Online Presence in Local Environmental Governance. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 63(1). DOI: 10.1080/09640568.2019.1628716 
• Bolsover, G, and Howard, P. N. (2019). Chinese computational propaganda: automation, algorithms and the manipulation of information about Chinese politics on Twitter and Weibo. Information, Communication and Society 22(14). DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2018.1476576 
• Bolsover, G. (2018). Slacktivist USA and Authoritarian China? Comparing Two Political Public Spheres with a Random Sample of Social Media Users. Policy and Internet 10(4).  DOI: 10.1002/poi3.186 
• Bolsover, G, and Howard, P. N. (2017). Computational propaganda and political big data: Moving toward a more critical research agenda. Big Data 5(4). DOI: 10.1089/big.2017.29024.cpr 
• Bolsover, G. (2017). Harmonious communitarianism or a rational public sphere:  A content analysis of the differences between comments on news stories on Weibo and Facebook. Asian Journal of Communication 27(2). DOI: 10.1080/01292986.2016.1214743 

Book Chapters 

• Bolsover, G. (2021). Social media, computational propaganda and control in China and beyond. In T. Clack and R. Johnson (Eds.), The World Information War: Campaigning, Cognition and Effect. London: Routledge. 
• Bolsover, G., and Howard, P. N. (2019). Computational Propaganda in the USA, Europe and China. In N. Vasu, B. Ang, & S. Jayakumar (Eds.), DRUMS: Distortions, Rumours, Untruths, Misinformation, and Smears (pp. 61–81). Singapore: World Scientific. DOI: /10.1142/11115 
• Bolsover, G. (2018). Computational Propaganda In China: An Alternative Model of a Widespread Practice. In P.N. Howard and S. Woolley (Eds.), Computational Propaganda: Political Parties, Politicians, and Political Manipulation on Social Media. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
• Bolsover, G., Dutton, W. H., Law, G., and Dutta, S. (2014). China and the US in the New Internet World: A comparative perspective. In M. Graham and W. Dutton (Eds.), Society and the Internet: How Information and Social Networks are Changing our Lives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199661992.003.0008 

Data Memos and Research Reports 

• Bolsover, G. (2022). Cultivating and Communicating Nationalism: Marketing China's Foreign Policy to its Citizens in the 20th Chinese Communist Party National Congress. Centre for Democratic Politics, University of Leeds.  
• Bolsover, G. (2020). COVID's impact on the US 2020 election: insights from social media discourse in the early campaign period. Centre for Democratic Engagement, University of Leeds.  
• Bolsover, G. (2020). Black Lives Matter discourse on US social media during COVID: polarised positions enacted in a new event. Centre for Democratic Engagement, University of Leeds. 21 Aug, 2020.  
• Bolsover, G. (2020). Balancing freedoms, rights and responsibilities during COVID in US: a study of anti-and pro-restriction discourse. Centre for Democratic Engagement, University of Leeds. 4 Aug, 2020.  
• Bolsover, G., and Tokitsu Tizon, J. (2020). Social Media and Health Misinformation during the US COVID Crisis. Centre for Democratic Engagement, University of Leeds. 20 July, 2020. 
• Bolsover, G. (2017). Computational propaganda in China: An alternative model of a widespread practice. COMPROP Research Report 2017.4, June 19, 2017.  
• Desigaud, C., Howard, P. N., Bradshaw, S., Kollanyi, B. and Bolsover, G. (2017). Junk News and Bots during the French Presidential Election: What Are French Voters Sharing Over Twitter In Round Two?  COMPROP Data Memo 2017.4, 4 May 2017. 
• Howard, P. N., Bradshaw, S., Kollanyi, B., Desigaud, C. and Bolsover, G. (2017). Junk news and bots during the French Presidential Election: What are French voters sharing over Twitter? COMPROP Data Memo 2017.3, 21 April 2017.  
• Howard, P. N., Bolsover, G., Kollanyi, B., Bradshaw, S. and Neudert, L. M. (2017) Junk news and bots during the U.S. election: What were Michigan voters Sharing over Twitter? COMPROP Data Memo 2017.1, 26 March 2017.  
• Dutton, W., Law, G., Bolsover, G., & Dutta, S. (2014). The Internet Trust Bubble: Global values, beliefs and practices underpinning the future of free expression, privacy and security online.  

Conference and Working Papers 

• Bolsover, G. (2017). Computational propaganda and the networked citizen. Presented at the Association of Internet Researchers Conference, October 2017. 
• Bolsover, G. (2017). Commercialisation, representation and political speech on commercial microblogs in the U.S. and China. Presented at the Chinese Internet Research Conference, June 2017. 
• Blank, G, Bolsover, G & Dubois, E. (2014). A New Privacy Paradox: Young people and privacy on social network sites. University of Oxford, Global Cyber Security Capacity Centre. (SSRN Scholarly Paper No. ID 2479938). Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network. Presented at the American Sociological Association Conference, August 2014. 
• Bolsover, G. (2014). What are appropriate normative frameworks to analyse the political effects of the Internet in China? (SSRN Scholarly Paper No. ID 2981552). Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network. Presented at the Chinese Internet Research Conference, June 2014. 
• Bolsover, G. (2013). News in China’s new information environment: Dissemination patterns, opinion leaders and news commentary on Weibo (SSRN Scholarly Paper No. ID 2257794). Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network. Presented at the Chinese Internet Research Conference, June 2013. DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.2257794 
• Bolsover, G., Dutton, W. H., Law, G., & Dutta, S. (2013). Social foundations of the Internet in China and the New Internet World: A cross-national comparative perspective (SSRN Scholarly Paper No. ID 2276482). Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network. Presented at the China and the New Internet World Information and Communication Association Pre-conference, June 2013. DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.2276482 
• Bolsover, G. (2013). Replay, Replace and Reconfigure – Empowered audiences riding the wave of viral videos to make new meanings and speak about their lives [an analysis of Gangnam style parody videos]. (SSRN Scholarly Paper No. ID 3351099). Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network.  

Projects 

• The Path to Power: 2024, with three post-doctoral researchers, one PhD student, a research communications manager and an assistant. October 2023 – present.  
• The Paradox of Authoritarian Popuilism: How can calls to protect democracy translate to democracy threatening actions? The Case of the US Capitol Riots. July 2022 – August 2023. 
• Online Political Discourse and Political Campaigning in the US During COVID, with two MA student research support assistants and an undergraduate Laidlaw Scholar. April 2020 – Sept. 2020. 
• Polarisation, (Hindu-)Nationalism and Anti-Secularism: Online Discourse in the Indian General Election, with three MA student research support assistants. January 2019 – March 2020. 
• Chinese State Presence in Online Environmental Discourse, with Coraline Goron, Duke Kunshan University. January 2018 - March 2020. 
• Computational Propaganda and Political Big Data, with Philip Howard, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, January 2017 – January 2018. 
• Technology and political speech: Commercialisation, authoritarianism and the supposed death of the Internet’s democratic potential, Oxford Internet Institute, October 2012 – January 2017. 
• ICTs in rural China: an interactive website, with Tom McDonald, Department of Anthropology, University College London. August 2014 – March 2019.  
• Cybersecurity Capacity Building, with William Dutton, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, August 2013 – March 2014. 
• Political Public Spheres of Facebook and Weibo, with one MA student research assistant, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, November 2013 – July 2015. 
• World Internet Values, with William Dutton and Grant Blank, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, October 2012 – November 2013. 

Teaching 

• Instructor; (MA) The Social Impact of Digital Technologies, University of Potsdam. Spring 2023. 
• Instructor; (BA) Politics of Contemporary China; University of Leeds. Winter 2018, Winter 2019, Spring 2021 and Winter 2022. 
• Module Leader; (MA) Research in Technology, Media and Politics; University of Leeds. Spring 2020, 2021 and 2022. 
• Instructor; (BA) Media, Politics and Democratic Engagement; University of Leeds. Winter 2019. 
• Instructor; (BA) Approaches to Analysis; University of Leeds. Spring 2019, 2020 and 2021. 
• Teaching Assistant; (MA) Digital Social Research Methods; Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. Winter 2016, Winter 2015, Winter 2014 and Spring 2014. 
• Teaching Assistant; (MA) Information Visualisation; Oxford Internet Institute. Spring 2015. 

Education 

• Oxford Internet Institute and Balliol College, University of Oxford. DPhil Information, Communication and the Social Sciences. 2012 – 2017.  
• Fudan University, Shanghai. MA Global Media and Communications (Distinction). 2010 –2011. 
• London School of Economics and Political Science. MSc Global Media and Communications (Distinction). 2009 –2010. 
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA. BA Political Science and Visual Communications – Photojournalism. 2002 – 2006. 

Experience 

• University of Potsdam, Professor of Digital Technology, Governance, and Policy, Hasso Plattner Institute. Oct. 2023 – present.  
• University of Leeds, Lecturer in Politics and Media, School of Politics and International Studies. Sept. 2018 – Aug. 2023. 
• University of Oxford, Research Associate, Oxford Internet Institute. Jan 2018 – Jan 2019. 
• University of Oxford, Postdoctoral Researcher in the Social Sciences, Oxford Internet Institute. Jan 2017 – Jan. 2018. Research Project: Computational Propaganda and Political Big Data. 

OTHER PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 

• Academic Editor, AH Editing, Hong Kong, China. (Working from UK). 2013 – 2015. 
• Production Director/Editor-in-chief, MxMedia, Shanghai, China. 2011 – 2012. 
• Freelance Writer and Photographer, Shanghai, China. 2010 – 2012. 
• Staff Photographer and Multimedia Producer, The Chattanooga Times Free Press, Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA. 2007 – 2009. 

Awards and Recognition 

• Cloud Computing Research Credits Grant, Google, 2022 – 2023, £4,318.50 
• For data collection, storage and analysis of online political discourse in the 20th CCP Congress  
• Cloud Computing Research Credits Grant, Google, 2021 – 2022, £3,750.51 
• For storage and analysis of data collected in the 2020 US General Election  
• Strategic Research Investment Fund, University of Leeds, 2021-2022. £2,933 
• To employ student coders on the US Capitol Riots project. 
• Cloud Computing Research Credits Grant, Google, 2021 – 2022, £3,211.80 
• For storage and analysis of data collected in the 2019 Indian General Election  
• COVID-19 Cloud Computing Research Credits Grant, Google, 2020 – 2021, £3,541.75 
• For data collection, storage and analysis of online political discourse in the US during COVID 
• Strategic Research Investment Fund, University of Leeds, 2019-2020. £4,000 
• To employ student coders on the Polarisation, (Hindu-)Nationalism and Anti-Secularism project. 
• Clarendon Scholarship, University of Oxford. 2012- 2016. £120,000 
• Tuition, fees and living costs for the most academically outstanding of Oxford’s graduate offer holders.  
• Best Student Paper Award, Chinese Internet Research Conference. June 2017.  
• Each year the conference organising committee selects one best paper and two honourable mentions.  
• Balliol College 750th Anniversary Prize (Social Sciences). First Place. May 2016.  
• Balliol College awards a yearly prize for the best graduate student work in the social sciences. 
• Best Student Paper Award (Honourable Mention), Chinese Internet Research Conference. June 2014 
• Best Student Paper Award (Honourable Mention), Chinese Internet Research Conference. June 2013  
• Santander Academic Travel Award, University of Oxford. 2014, £1,000.  
• Academic Project Grant, Balliol College. 2014, £250; 2013, £250. 

Conferences  

POLICY AND STAKEHOLDER IMPACT 

• German Government Stakeholders (including German Federal Foreign Office, Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport and Federal Centre for Political Education), Artificial Intelligence and Disinformation – Implications for International Cooperation, 22 Feb. 2024.  
• UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport; China and technology roundtable. 15 Feb. 2022 
• UK Government Stakeholders (including Ministry of Defence, Cabinet Office and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office); Oxford Symposium on the Future of the Indo-Pacific Region, 14-16 Sept. 2021 
• Singaporean Ministry of Defence and state departments; Workshop on Distortions, Rumours, Untruths, Misinformation and Smears. Centre of Excellence for National Security, Singapore. 31 Mar. 2021. 
• US Senate Committee on Intelligence; cited in report on Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election: Volume 2: Russia's Use of Social Media. 8 Oct. 2019 
• Facebook Product Policy and Community Standards Team. Private discussion on proposed revisions to platform community standards policies in cases of newsworthy content. 2 July, 2019.  
• UK Government Stakeholders; Information, Campaigning and Effects Workshop. Oxford, 27 Mar. 2019.  
• Belgian Royal Higher Institute for Defence; keynote, Royal Military Academy, Brussels.  26 Mar. 2019. 
• Australian Office of National Intelligence; private meeting, Oxford. 3 Nov. 2017.   
• Singaporean Ministry of Defence and state departments; Workshop on Distortions, Rumours, Untruths, Misinformation and Smears. Centre of Excellence for National Security, Singapore. 24 July 2017.  
• NATO-Georgia Public Diplomacy Forum; Panel on Cyber Warfare. Tbilisi, Georgia. 10 Apr. 2017. 

INVITED ACADEMIC TALKS 

• Hertie School, Berlin, Germany. Authoritarian Populism and the Internet: Exploring and explaining this global political trend with cross-national comparative research. 15 June, 2022. 
• Mershon Center for International Studies, Ohio State University, USA. Great Power Competition and Conflict: The Informational Power of USA, Russia, and China. Chinese Information Power, Computational Propaganda and the Chinese Dream of National Rejuvenation. 31 January 2020. 
• Chinese Speaking Tour, Fighting Fake and Draining the Swamp: Trump's 2020 Election Campaign and the Real News Update series. October 2019 

- China Foreign Affairs University, Beijing, China 

- China University of Politics and Law, Beijing, China 

- Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing, China 

- East China University of Politics and Law, Shanghai, China 

- Shanghai University of Politics and Law, Shanghai, China 

• Oxford China Centre, University of Oxford, UK. Engagement or Control? The Chinese State's Burgeoning Presence in Online Environmental Discourse, with Coraline Goron. 14 February, 2019. 
• Chinese Speaking Tour, Computational Propaganda and Online Public Opinion Manipulation. November 2018 

- China University of Politics and Law, Shanghai, China 

- Shanghai University of Politics and Law, China 

- Nanjing University, China 

- Xiamen University, China 

- Shenzhen University, China [Presented in Chinese] 

- Sun Yat Sen University, Guangzhou, China 

• Volkswagen Foundation, Hannover, Germany. Data, Technology and Digitalization and Environmental Governance in China, War on pollution in cyberspace with Coraline Goron. 28 May, 2018.  
• Hong Kong University, Hong Kong. Political Bots and Astroturfing as a New Media and Global Phenomenon.  
• 21 July, 2017. 
• UCL Centre for Mathematics and Physics in Life Sciences and Experimental Biology, Annual meeting, Windsor, UK. The Influence of Big Data in Politics. 30 May, 2017.  
• Oxford China Forum, Oxford, UK. The Evolution of Social Media in China. 17 February, 2017. 
• Rhodes House, Oxford, UK. Global Scholar’s Network Ideas-to-Action Praxis Workshop. Using Social Media for Social Change. 15 March, 2014.  

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS 

• Engagement or control? The Impact of the Chinese Environmental Protection Bureaus’ Burgeoning Online Presence in Local Environmental Governance. Political Studies Association Media and Politics Group Annual Conference, 16/17 December, 2019, Leeds, University of Leeds.  
• Computational propaganda and the networked citizen. Panel on Computational Propaganda: Global Perspectives. Association of Internet Researchers Conference, 21 October 2017, Tartu, Estonia. 
• Chinese computational propaganda: the influence of bots and opinion manipulation on information about Chinese politics on Twitter and Weibo. Panel on automated social media bots and the non-human: opening a dialogue between political communication and science and technology studies. Eleventh Annual Science in Public Conference: Science, Technology and Humanity, 10 July 2017, University of Sheffield.   
• Commercialisation, representation and political speech on commercial microblogs in the U.S. and China. Chinese Internet Research Conference, 5 June 2017, Texas A&M University School of Law. 
• What are appropriate normative frameworks to analyse the political effects of the Internet in China? Chinese Internet Research Conference, 20 June 2014, Hong Kong Polytechnic University 
• Cross-National Comparative Research: Challenges, Limitations, Problems and Payoffs, Chinese Internet Research Graduate Student Pre-Conference, 18 June 2014, Hong Kong Polytechnic University. 
• Using Cross-National Comparative Research to Study Citizen Media, Citizen Media in Russia, Central and Eastern Europe, China and East Asia, and the Arab World, 27-28 January 2014, The University of Manchester. http://citizenmediamanchester.wordpress.com/resources/videos/ 
• Using traditional dichotomies to assess differences between political speech on Facebook and Weibo, Revisiting the Emancipatory Potential of Digital Media in Asia, 24-25 January 2013, The University of Leiden.  
• News in China’s New Information Environment: Dissemination Patterns, Opinion Leaders and News Commentary on Weibo, Chinese Internet Research Conference, 15 June 2013, The University of Oxford. 
• Social foundations of the Internet in China and the new Internet world: A cross-national comparative perspective, China and the New Internet World, an ICA pre-conference, 14 June 2013, The University of Oxford.