Charles Berret

Charles Berret is a Ph.D. candidate in the Communications program at Columbia. He studies visual and written information systems, from the book to the computer. Recent projects have focused on typography, cryptography, and data-driven storytelling as symbolic spaces in which aesthetic and political values are persistently negotiated. This interdisciplinary research draws from the literatures and methodologies of critical media studies, cultural sociology, digital humanities, linguistic anthropology, and the history of science and technology. Charles is also an avid programmer and a recipient of a Magic Grant from the Brown Institute for Media Innovation. At Brown, his team built SearchLight, a tool that enables investigative journalists to pinpoint cases of algorithmic discrimination in search engine results and advertisements. As a teacher, Charles’s work focuses on the development of technological literacies in journalism and other disciplines that once emphasized writing alone. His academic work has been published in the Journal of Visual Culture.

Tow project: Guide to Secure Drop