Jun 4, 2026 Isabelle Freiling Faculty Fellow, Spring 2026

Briefly describe your project and the challenges, lessons learned, and obstacles overcome in the execution of it. What were the professional, academic, and personal motivations underlying your project?

Emerging sciences and the technologies they enable present increasingly high stakes and high uncertainties regarding both desired outcomes and unintended consequences. My project investigates these complexities by exploring how people react to AI-driven threats, such as societal disruption through contributing to job losses or increased polarization. I am specifically investigating how the public situates these risks geographically by examining whether the perceived origin of a threat, specifically from domestic versus foreign actors, influences their level of concern. This research provides a timely vantage point for incorporating public perspectives into the current regulatory vacuum, ensuring that future AI governance is informed by the actual public concerns before these threats fully manifest.

How did the Digital Matters Faculty Fellowship dovetail with your academic pursuits? What interested you in applying for this grant?

Much of my work focuses on how people perceive emerging science and technology, which serves as a critical foundation for developing effective science communication. AI is a topic I am currently researching extensively because it is highly relevant to society, allowing this project to align seamlessly with my broader research interests.

Additionally, my work focuses on current online information environments and is often interdisciplinary. I therefore appreciate the Digital Matters Fellowship program, as it offered an opportunity for interdisciplinary exchange with other Fellows who are navigating similar challenges in the digital landscape.

What insights have you gained in regard to your specific field as a result of your project and grant experience?

My project has provided critical insights into how the public understands emerging technology. While I initially sought to measure the impact of specific threat narratives, the findings suggest that the public may have reached a saturation point regarding certain AI-related risks, such as workforce disruption. However, the project also revealed that public perception remains more fluid regarding less-discussed impacts, such as AI’s role in societal polarization. This highlights that our field must distinguish between topics of high societal awareness and those where the public is still actively seeking tools to help them critically engage with and make sense of new technologies.

Furthermore, for both AI’s role in workforce disruption and in polarization, the specific origin of the risk did not matter, regardless of whether the threat was attributed to a domestic or a foreign company. Ultimately, this grant experience provided a new vantage point for understanding these challenges, emphasizing the need for digital scholarship that bridges the gap between academic research and the complex ways the public processes information in their daily lives.

What would you tell potential faculty applicants to help them shape their own digital scholarship project?

Clearly articulate the societal relevance and broader vision of your project! Digital scholarship should not exist in a vacuum; instead, it offers a powerful mechanism for connecting academic insights to the real-world challenges facing our communities today. I believe that Digital Matters deeply values research that gives back to society, as demonstrated by the program’s emphasis on public-facing blog posts. Therefore, you should strive to show how your project can bridge the gap between academic research and the public, for example, by proposing work that addresses pressing societal issues.