Director of Communications Studies (Retired)
James D. White, Ph.D. passed away on Wednesday, October 21, 2015. He was previously Director of Communications Studies in the Center for Advanced Communications Policy, School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Visiting Professor, Journalism and Media Studies Center, University of Hong Kong. Formerly he was the Associate Director of the Program in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance and, prior to that, Associate Director of the Globalization Research Center, both at the University of Hawaii.
Dr. White’s research interests included social media, comparative media studies, transnational information flows, and issues in civil society. Recent projects have compared the use of microblogs such as Twitter in the U.S. and in China, and contrasted communications in disaster situations in the two countries. A 2011 research report for the National Council on Disabilities, entitled “The Power of Digital Inclusion” outlined the ongoing employment problems challenging people with disabilities and the promise that the networked economy and new digital media technology hold to transform the situation. Most recently his work involved investigating social media, looking at how they impact social settings for school-age youth in the U.S. The most recent of his many publications as an academic and as a journalist are the books Fear of Persecution: Global Human Rights, International Law, and Human Well- Being (2007) and Global Media: The Television Revolution in Asia (2003).
Prior to academia he was president of the Japan office of an international financial communications consultancy and had a distinguished career as a communications consultant, journalist and editor, in Asia and London. Dr. White received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Hawai’i and his B.A. in American Studies from the University of Manchester.