Keith Hampton

Keith Hampton (born 1973) is an Associate Professor of Communication at Rutgers University. His research interests focus on the relationship between information and communication technology, such as the Internet, social networks, and community.

Hampton received his PhD from the Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, and previously was a faculty member at MIT and the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

Recent research explores such subjects as social interaction in public spaces the role of technology in social isolation, and the role of the Internet in neighborhood interactions and relationships.

Early life

Hampton received his B.A. (Bachelor’s) in sociology, with honours, from the University of Calgary. He completed his graduate work at the University of Toronto, where he trained with Barry Wellman. He received an M.A. in sociology in 1998, and a Ph.D in Sociology in 2001. His dissertation, “Living the wired life in the wired suburb: Netville, glocalization and civil society” received top honors from both the International Communication Association’s Communication and Technology division, and the Media Ecology Association.

Academic Appointments

After receiving his doctorate, Hampton joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty as the first professor of “technology and the city” in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning. He taught at MIT from 2001 through 2005 before joining the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania faculty as an Assistant Professor of Communication. He played a leading role in transforming the focus of the American Sociological Association’s section on "Microcomputing" to its current formation as the section on Communication and Information Technologies (CITASA). He served as chair of the American Sociological Association’s section on Communication and Information Technologies from 2007–2009, and past-chair from 2009-2010.Hampton joined the faculty of Rutgers University's School of Communication and Information as an associate professor of communication in 2012.

i-Neighbors

Hampton created the website www.i-Neighbors.org, which helps users to form virtual communities that correspond to physical neighbourhoods. The site informs research on how Internet use affords local interactions, facilitates community involvement, and contributes to social capital. In 2007 Hampton received an award for Public Sociology from the American Sociological Association’s Section on Communication and Information Technologies for his work on i-Neighbors.org.

Publications

Hampton is the author of more than 30 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. He has also authored a Pew Internet and American Life report on the Internet and Social Isolation in America with Lauren Sessions Goulet, Eun Ja Her, and Lee Rainie. His Erdős number is 4.

Select Publications:

• Hampton, Keith, Oren Livio, and Lauren Sessions Goulet (2010). The Social Life of Wireless Urban Spaces: Internet Use, Social Networks, and the Public Realm. Journal of Communication 4(60), 701-722.
• Hampton, Keith (2010). Internet Use and the Concentration of Disadvantage: Glocalization and the Urban Underclass. American Behavioral Scientist 53(8), 1111-1132.
• Hampton, Keith, Lauren Sessions, Eun Ja Her, and Lee Rainie (2009). Social Isolation and New Technology: How the Internet and Mobile Phones Impact Americans’ Social Networks. Pew Internet & American Life Project. Washington, DC.
• Hampton, Keith (2007). Neighborhoods in the Network Society: The e-Neighbors Study. Information, Communication & Society. 10(5). 714-748.
• Hampton, Keith & Barry Wellman (2003). Neighboring in Netville: How the Internet Supports Community and Social Capital in a Wired Suburb. City and Community 2(4), 277-311.