Lance Bennett, Professor, received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University in 1974, and has taught since then at the University of Washington, where he is Ruddick C. Lawrence Professor Communication and Professor of Political Science. He is also founder and director of the Center for Communication and Civic Engagement. The Center is dedicated to understanding how communication processes and technologies can enhance citizen engagement with social life, politics, and global affairs.

Bennett has lectured internationally on the importance of media and information systems in civic life. His current research interests include: press-government relations and the quality of public information, strategic communication campaigns, communication and the organization of social movements, transnational activism, and digital media and youth civic engagement. An ongoing area of research and public scholarship is Civic Learning Online, a project that can be viewed at www.engagedyouth.org.

He is author or editor of ten books, including: News: The Politics of Illusion, (Longman, 8th ed.); Taken By Storm: The Media, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy in the Gulf War (Chicago, co-edited with David Paletz), Mediated Politics: Communication in the Future of Democracy (Cambridge, co-edited with Robert Entman with whom he also co-edits the Cambridge University Press series Communication, Society and Politics). His most recent book is When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina (Chicago, with Regina Lawrence and Steven Livingston).

He has served on the editorial boards of leading journals in political science and communication, including: Journal of Communication, American Journal of Political Science, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Press/Politics, and Political Communication. He has served as chair of the Political Communication Section of the American Political Science Association. He was a founding member of the board of directors of TVW, the Washington State public affairs network. And he has served as the Laurence M. Lombard Visiting Professor of press/politics in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

His awards include: the E. E. Schattschneider dissertation award, the Ithiel de Sola Pool Award and Lectureship, and the Murray Edelman Distinguished Career Award in Political Communication, all from the American Political Science Association. He also received the Donald McGannon Award for Social and Ethical Relevance in Communication Policy (with Jarol Manheim). Uppsala University has awarded him its Doctor of Philosophy, honoris causa. In 2010 the Swedish Research Council selected him to hold the Olof Palme Chair, hosted by the Political Science Department of Stockholm University. And he is a National Communication Association Distinguished Scholar.

His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Ford Foundation, Social Science Research Council, Spencer Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, Annenberg Policy Foundation, Belgian Science Policy Foundation, The MacArthur Foundation, the Fulbright Commission, and the Surdna Foundation, among others.

The Logic of Connective Action explains the rise of a personalized digitally networked politics in which diverse individuals address the common problems of our times such as economic fairness and climate change. Rich case studies from the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany illustrate a theoretical framework for understanding how large-scale connective action is coordinated using inclusive discourses such as "We Are the 99%" that travel easily through social media. In many of these mobilizations, communication operates as an organizational process that may replace or supplement familiar forms of collective action based on organizational resource mobilization, leadership, and collective action framing. In some cases, connective action emerges from crowds that shun leaders, as when Occupy protesters created media networks to channel resources and create loose ties among dispersed physical groups. In other cases, conventional political organizations deploy personalized communication logics to enable large-scale engagement with a variety of political causes. The Logic of Connective Action shows how power is organized in communication-based networks, and what political outcomes may result.