Wil Dubree is a research master’s student in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Currently, his work focuses on local and alternative news and their implications in maintaining a just and informed society. Methodologically, Wil is trained as a computational social scientist, employing and developing computational techniques to study our shifting media environments.
His thesis combines natural language processing and time series analysis to study the agenda-setting effect of non-traditional outlets. Funded by the Democracy Fund and the Duke University DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy, Wil is also leading a local news project where he developed an automated system to collect comprehensive news articles from hundreds of local news websites.
Wil holds a B.A. degree in Media (with a focus on Science and Research) from the School of Media at Indiana University, as well as a certificate in Informatics from the Indiana University’s Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering. He will complete his M.A. at SJMC in May 2024.