Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, will discuss his work at 3 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 18 in the Yeager Recital Hall of the Faith Rockefeller Model Center for the Arts. The lecture is free and open to the public.
The Pew Internet & American Life Project is a non-profit initiative of the Pew Research Center for People and the Press and is funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Directed by researchers based in Washington, D.C., the project does research aimed at analyzing the social impact of the Internet, exploring its effects on children, families, communities, the workplace, schools, health care and civic/political life.
The Pew Internet Project is currently working with two Elon School of Communications faculty members on research about the Internet. Janna Anderson is teaching a Winter Term class titled “One Neighborhood, One Week on the Internet,” and Connie Book is leading selected students in a study of predictions about the future of the Internet.
Prior to his work on the Pew project Rainie was managing editor of U.S. News & World Report. During his 12 years at the magazine, he edited in several departments including the magazine’s online operations, its national news section, and its culture and social trends section.
Over those years, eight of the stories or special editions of the magazine that he edited were finalists for the National Magazine Award, the magazine industry’s equivalent of daily journalism’s Pulitzer Prize. Other stories he has overseen have won top prizes for education, science, health, environmental, and religious coverage.
Rainie has appeared on numerous television news shows as an analyst and commentator on national affairs, including ABC-TV’s “Nightline,” CBS-TV’s “48 Hours” and “Face the Nation,” NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press,” each of the network’s morning shows, and a variety of news and feature programs on cable TV.
Prior to joining U.S. News, Rainie was chief of staff to Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of New York, and a political reporter at the New York Daily News.