Dartmouth Events

Anthropology Colloquium with Dr. Rowan Flad, Professor of Archaeology, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University. Examining regional bias in US media coverage of archaeology: Is anti-Asian bias evident?

Is there geographical or cultural bias in the US media coverage of archaeological research? We identified archaeology research papers published in seven leading scientific journals across six years. We then evaluated the attention these papers received in mass and social media based on Altmetric data quantifying news coverage and Twitter mentions.  Comparing media exposure given to research from different geographic regions, we assess whether geographic or cultural bias is evident in popular uptake of archaeological discoveries and show clear geographical biases in the media coverage in the United States.

Dr. Flad is the John E. Hudson Professor of Archaeology at Harvard University. His research focuses on the emergence and development of complex society during the late Neolithic period and the Bronze Age in China. He has conducted excavations at a salt production site in the eastern Sichuan Basin, a regional survey in the Chengdu region focusing on prehistoric settlement patterns and social evolution, and survey and excavations at late Neolithic and early Bronze Age in the Tao River Valley of southern Gansu. His current projects focus on aspects of social complexity including: specialized production and technology, the anthropology of value, mortuary analysis, archaeological landscapes, interregional interaction, cultural transmission, animal and plant domestication, and bias in both media coverage of archaeological research and the practice of archaeology.