Seth Lewis

Seth Lewis, a nationally recognized scholar of journalism and digital media, will join UVA’s faculty in August 2026. His appointment reflects the University’s deepening commitment to exploring how artificial intelligence is reshaping journalism, public knowledge, and democratic society. 

Lewis’s research examines the evolving relationship between media and technology. A leading voice in the study of generative AI, his work focuses on how tools like ChatGPT are disrupting longstanding norms of authorship, originality, and professional identity in journalism. He also explores a broader cultural shift: growing public skepticism toward core institutions of knowledge, including journalism, medicine, and academia.

With more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and over 16,000 academic citations, Lewis is widely regarded as one of the most influential communication scholars of his generation. His work has been supported by fellowships at Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism, Yale Law School’s Information Society Project, and Oxford University’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. He has also served in key leadership positions for the International Communication Association and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.