About

Philip Michael Napoli is the James R. Shepley Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at the Sanford School of Public Policy. He is also a professor in the Sanford School and serves as the Director of the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy. Additionally, he is an associate of the Duke Initiative for Science & Society. His work involves examining the implications of social media ownership and support by major platforms on democracy, as evidenced by his participation in discussions such as Sanford's Policy 360 podcast. His contact information includes an email at philip.napoli@duke.edu and an office located in the Sanford Building at Duke University.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Computer Security
• Law
• Sociology
• Computer Science
• World Wide Web
• Internet privacy
• Public relations

Selected publications

• The News Media and Philanthropy

  2026-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Social media for public health: Reaping the benefits, mitigating the harms

  UNC Libraries · 2025-03-20

  articleOpen access

  With more than 4.26 billion social media users worldwide, social media has become a primary source of health information, exchange, and influence. As its use has rapidly expanded, social media has proven to be a "doubled-edged sword," with considerable benefits as well as notable harms. It can be used to encourage preventive behaviors, foster social connectivity for better mental health, enable health officials to deliver timely information, and connect individuals to reliable information. But social media also has contributed to public health crises by exacerbating a decline in public trust, deteriorating mental health (especially in young people), and spreading dangerous misinformation. These realities have profound implications for health professionals, social media companies, governments, and users. We discuss promising guidelines, digital safety practices, and regulations on which to build a comprehensive approach to healthy use of social media. Concerted efforts from social media companies, governments, users, public interest groups, and academia are essential to mitigate the harms and unlock the benefits of this powerful new technology.

  PublisherDOI

• Distinguishing Journalism from Political Influence Operations

  Journal of Information Policy · 2025-07-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract One defining characteristic of contemporary news and information ecosystems is the increasingly blurred line separating legitimate journalism from partisan political influence operations. While the First Amendment limits government interventions on this front, there is one seldom-discussed federal mechanism for bringing greater clarity to the question of whether an entity is operating as a news organization or a political influence operation. The Federal Election Commission (FEC), which regulates House, Senate, and presidential political campaigns, possesses the authority to determine whether an organization represents a legitimate press entity and its activities represent legitimate press functions, or whether it runs political influence operations in the guise of journalism. This “press exemption” represents an important and underutilized mechanism for bringing greater clarity and transparency to contemporary news and information ecosystems. This article utilizes a critical analysis of key FEC press exemption decisions to illustrate how the FEC brings inadequate analytical rigor to its responsibility to administer the press exemption. It describes enhanced analytical approaches that the FEC can employ when making press exemption determinations. Finally, it offers a roadmap for how the FEC can use its authority to address one of the key challenges confronting our news and information ecosystem and undermining an informed electorate.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• On moving fast and breaking things . . . again: social media’s lessons for generative AI governance

  Information Communication & Society · 2025-06-04 · 6 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Media and Technology Policy

  University of Illinois Press eBooks · 2024-03-26 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter explores the opportunities and challenges of public scholarship in media and technology policy. In doing so, it provides a sense of the institutional context for such engagement, drawing on a range of examples, as well as personal experiences accumulated over the author’s twenty-five years of conducting media and technology policy research, and in the process engaging with a wide range of government bodies, industry associations, and public interest advocacy organizations. In addressing this topic, this chapter considers some of the practicalities associated with conducting public scholarship in this area, such as maintaining research integrity, navigating academic environments that sometimes do not encourage or reward public scholarship, and coping with the public hostility and blowback that often accompanies public scholarship in this area.

  PublisherDOI

• Epistemic Rights, Information Inequalities, and Public Policy

  Global transformations in media and communication/Global transformations in media and communication research · 2024-01-01 · 3 citations

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This chapter provides an overview of the range of information inequalities that are fundamentally connected with the notion of epistemic rights and considers the various ways that public policy has—or could—address these inequalities. As this chapter illustrates, information inequalities permeate many aspects of the contemporary news and information ecosystem. This chapter considers well-established information inequalities such as the digital divide and disparities in media ownership as well as newer information inequalities, such as news deserts, disinformation divides, and algorithmic bias. This chapter is intended as a starting point for deeper conversations about how public policy can systematically address various forms of information inequality and thereby enhance individual and collective epistemic rights.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Agnotology, Free Speech, and the Precarious Politics of Media Research

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• In pursuit of ignorance: The institutional assault on disinformation and hate speech research

  The Information Society · 2024-11-03 · 7 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Media Policy for an Informed Citizenry: Revisiting the Information Needs of Communities for Democracy in Crisis

  The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science · 2023-05-01 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access

  This volume of The ANNALS revisits and updates a call made by scholars in the early 2010s for public policy to respond to the market failure of local news. Organized into four parts—policy, supply, demand, and adaptation—this volume is committed to the proposition that people need information about their communities in order to navigate everyday life, and that those information needs are inextricably intertwined with other basic necessities like sustenance, transportation, housing, health, and safety. However, local and regional newspapers face an existential threat to their continued economic survival that undermines their ability to do even basic, routine coverage of civic institutions and communities. This volume demonstrates that professional journalism is one of many ways to support communities’ information needs. We consider how new sources of news and information might fill contemporary information needs and how media policy, broadly understood, could help create a more equitable, tolerant, and just multiracial democracy.

  PublisherDOI

• Government interventions into news quality

  2023-01-20 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter explores how the notion of news quality has been incorporated into contemporary media policy discussions and interventions. This chapter focuses on three national contexts: the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. This chapter pays particular attention to the political dynamics surrounding policy interventions that are either directly or indirectly related to news quality. As this chapter illustrates, within the countries studied there has been a fairly consistent pattern of policymakers initially acknowledging news quality as a policy objective, but then shying away from directly employing the news quality terminology and replacing it with related concepts, such as public interest journalism, or journalism that addresses critical information needs.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Allen S. Hammond

  University of California, San Diego

  121 shared

• Robert Horwitz

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  121 shared

• Robert W. McChesney

  121 shared

• Ellen Goodman

  University of Amsterdam

  121 shared

• Donald Mcgannon

  Parker Hannifin (Germany)

  85 shared

• Everett Parker

  Rutgers Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

  85 shared

• Patricia Aufdherheide

  American University

  85 shared

• Kari Karppinen

  52 shared