October 10, 2026

TikTok on the Clock: Public Scholarship and CSCW in 2026

CSCW 2026 Salt Lake City

🎶 Wake up in the morning gotta check that feed

Like that study, share that blog, we gotta get up to speed

Before we leave, post a vid critiquing the AI stack

‘Cause CSCW researchers, we aint holding back

We’re talking TikTok’s on online community

Advocating for equal opportunity

Taking down trolls replying abusively, abusively

We're hot take dropping, making complex topics easier

Getting all over the news media

And pages on Wikipedia

Don't stop, make it pop

The trolls might blow our @s up

But we’re still gonna fight

'Til we get the tech right

TikTok on the clock

We’re not going to stop, no 🎶

Public scholarship allows CSCW researchers to share their expertise, arming the public with evidence-based insights on impacts of emerging technologies. While scholars benefit from growing their profile, there are also risks like online harassment and attacks from government agencies, which are particularly acute for researchers belonging to marginalized groups and who study topics like diversity in tech and online safety. Rapidly changing technical and political landscapes have heightened the importance and risks of engaging in public scholarship. This workshop will showcase ways CSCW researchers can engage in public scholarship and solidarity amidst this evolving landscape.

Apply here!

Workshop theme

Academia is commonly characterized as an "ivory tower" and so public scholarship has emerged as an effort to democratize knowledge. It includes an array of activities involving the public, including participatory research, engagement with news media, use of social media, and creative projects. But maintaining a virtual presence and making oneself discoverable is now part of a contemporary context and is considered "part of the academic job." But while public scholarship has long been gaining prominence, mounting pressure has heightened the need to raze walls between the public and higher education. It's also increased the risks for individual researchers. The CSCW community is particularly well-suited to help navigate rapidly shifting political and technical landscapes and yet CSCW researchers have also come under attack for their work on the very topics needed to understand and support public scholarship. This workshop aims to support CSCW scholars interested in unpacking the potential and practicalities of public scholarship.

We seek to bring people with different levels of and experiences with public scholarship together to learn from and share expertise.

Workshop goals:

Illustrate why public scholarship matters in CSCW
Showcase the array of options CSCW researchers have for engaging in public scholarship
Provide insight into the risks and benefits of public scholarship in 2026
Build confidence and self-efficacy for engaging in public scholarship
Build solidarity amid rapidly shifting landscapes that come with unequal impacts.