Sarah Florini is an Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at Arizona State University. She is also the Associate Director of ASU’s Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics, where she co-chairs the AI and Ethics Workgroup.
About:
Dr. Florini’s work focuses on technology, social media, technology ethics, digital ethnography, and Black digital culture. One of the first scholars to write about Black Twitter and the first to publish about Black podcasting, her work has consistently been at the forefront of the emerging field of Black digitial studies. Her book Beyond Hashtags: Racial Politics and Black Digital Networks examines a multi-media cross-platform network of Black American content creators and social media users between 2010 and 2016.
She is currently the PI on “Understanding Algorithmic Folk Theories,” a project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities Dangers and Opportunities of Technology program. The project seeks to understand how TikTok content creators from historically marginalized groups theorize and engage in knowledge-making about the algorithmic elements of the platform. This work grows out of an ongoing four-year collaboration between ASU’s DH Initiative and the Online Content Creator Association (formerly The Online Creators’ Association), a professional and advocacy group for TikTok content creators. The partnership also resulted in the 2022 “Experiences on TikTok” panel series, featuring queer, fat, Black, and disabled creators.
Dr. Florini is also dedicated to fostering critical AI literacy and ethical engagement with ML/AI technologies. She founded the AI and Ethics Workgroup to serve as a catalyst for critical conversations about the role of AI models in higher education. The workgroup’s first whitepaper, “AI and Higher Education: Trajectories and Questions,” surfaces key concerns and questions about the future universities and colleges. She is also spearheading one of four Responsible AI curriculum collaborations funded by the National Humanities Center and Google Education. Dr. Florini will be partnering with Mesa Community College faculty to create responsible AI curriculum and materials for each institution, to be implemented in academic year 2025-2026. Dr. Florini is also the Director of the DH Certificate and a member of the Critical Media Studies Research Cluster at Arizona State University.