About

Amy Gonzales is an Associate Professor and Associate Director at the Chicano Studies Institute within the Department of Communication at UC Santa Barbara. Her research focuses on two main areas: digital inequalities in computing access and digital literacy, and the social processes online, particularly the use of technology for social support and social connection. She examines the effects of social interaction via communication technologies on identity and well-being, with a particular interest in the intersection of communication scholarship and policy. Dr. Gonzales' work aims to advance both theoretical understanding and practical solutions to mitigate the long-term negative effects of digital infrastructures. Much of her research explores these phenomena among disadvantaged communities, including racial and ethnic minorities, low-income populations, seniors, and low-literacy groups. She has published in leading journals in the field of communication, such as the Journal of Communication, Communication Research, New Media & Society, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, and Information, Communication & Society. She is currently accepting graduate students for Fall 2026 in the area of digital inequality.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Computer Science
• Psychology
• Social psychology
• Public relations
• Law
• Business
• Aesthetics
• Management
• World Wide Web
• Marketing
• Pedagogy
• Engineering
• Communication
• Media studies
• Economics
• History
• Developmental psychology
• Engineering ethics
• Economic growth
• Epistemology
• Internet privacy

Selected publications

• Young women’s perceptions of cooperative privacy threats through the lens of abortion in the United States

  New Media & Society · 2025-12-10

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Privacy scholars have posited that institutional privacy threats arouse more uncertainty than social privacy threats, though research examining different types of privacy threats side-by-side is limited. This research uses the repeal of federal protection for abortion in the United States as a case study to explore reactions to these different threats. Moreover, by separately considering corporations and the state, we inductively examine beliefs about the flows of information and resulting power dynamics between individuals (horizontal) and multiple institutions (vertical). Data from interviews with 45 young women in California and Indiana revealed that privacy threats from institutions—especially the state—were perceived as more uncertain, and that these various threats were seen as intertwined. We present the construct of cooperative privacy threats to highlight the lack of boundaries between privacy threats, which often amplifies the risks they pose. Our findings elaborate on online privacy theory and may inform future privacy-preserving policy and technology design.

  PublisherDOI

• First-level fundamentals: computer ownership is more important for internet benefits than in-home internet service

  Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication · 2025-04-05 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Although computers, smartphones, and internet service are essential 21st century tools, digital equity stakeholders often focus on in-home internet service in their advocacy. Yet few scholars have compared the associated benefits of different fundamental digital resources. In response, a cross-sectional analysis of two waves of U.S. census data (2020, N = 84,206; 2023, N = 82,941) revealed that computer use (laptop/desktop) was consistently a stronger predictor of beneficial internet use (e.g., job searches, government resources, and eHealth) than smartphone access or in-home internet service, and device quality explained additional model variance. Moreover, computer use without in-home internet was more beneficial than in-home internet without computer use, and in-home internet was especially important in homes with smartphones. These findings add nuance to resources and appropriation theory and the technology maintenance framework, and underscore that internet and devices are both important, requiring policies that facilitate access to both.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Beyond the individual level: a social-ecological perspective to understanding technology maintenance barriers and strategies among low-income U.S. adults

  Information Communication & Society · 2025-07-28 · 1 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Nourishing Community: Interdependence Appeals Promote Help Acceptance

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Depressed individuals’ support seeking in online communities: The role of anonymity, self-disclosure, and privacy skills

  Computers in Human Behavior · 2025-11-20 · 2 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Resilience through the Lens of Technology Maintenance

  2025-09-02

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Access to the internet and other computing resources is an essential way to stay connected to information, social support, services, and market exchanges. In short, we need technology today to stay resilient. However, it is often difficult to maintain reliable technology access, or know how to use contemporary technology, for many segments of the population. This chapter examines the ways in which we both need technology to remain resilient and require resilience to use technology. To do this, we review the literature on technology maintenance, which posits that continuous effort is required to stay connected to technology, particularly for those that are low-income. We segment the chapter into research that identifies: (a) barriers to staying connected, (b) the consequences of disruption, and (c) the strategies that help keep people successfully connected to technology. We then discuss current policy trends that can help ensure stable access to computing technology for all individuals over the coming decades, helping to build more resilient societies.

  PublisherDOI

• 38 Current Practices and Innovations in Sampling

  2025-11-25

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• “A” for Access: The Effects of Pandemic Technology Maintenance Issues on College Students’ Grades, Stress, and Coping

  Proceedings of the ... Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences/Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences · 2024-01-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• What is Community?: Informing the Design of a Community Building Platform for Low-Income Black and Latino Residents

  Proceedings of the ... Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences/Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences · 2024-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Online communities can offer under-resourced populations an avenue for upward social mobility by capitalizing on community connections and the pooling of resources. UpTogether, a non-profit organization, attempted to access this potential by providing its members with a novel social media platform to interact with like-minded others. Yet, despite members' interest in building greater connections within the community, few people utilized the platform to engage with their groups. By examining 25 participant interviews, we explore participants’ conceptualizations of community and their experience on the platform. With this, we identify their expectations of community and pose recommendations for future initiatives aimed at building community–online and offline.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• “A” for Access: The Effects of Pandemic Technology Maintenance Issues on College Students’ Grades, Stress, and Coping

  Proceedings of the ... Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences/Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences · 2024-01-01

  articleOpen access

  Campus lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic left some higher education students without access to reliable, high-quality digital technology. This research extends the technology maintenance construct—the idea that computing quality is consequential for quality-of-life–in a few key ways: by examining it in the novel context of emergency remote learning, by testing students’ place of residence as a moderator of its effect on academic success, and by linking this construct to perceived stress and coping. In an analysis of representative survey data from a public university in California between February and July of 2020, we find that although Internet and computing quality were not associated with GPA pre-lockdown, they were during lockdown, particularly for students who remained on campus. Internet and computing quality also predicted students’ stress and coping ability during lockdown. These data underscore the role of higher education institutions in expanding access to digital technology.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Jeffrey T. Hancock

  Stanford University

  8 shared

• Yeweon Kim

  Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology

  4 shared

• Teresa Lynch

  The Ohio State University

  3 shared

• Julie Hui

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  3 shared

• Glenna L. Read

  University of Georgia

  3 shared

• David A. Asch

  3 shared

• Lindsay Ems

  Butler University

  3 shared

• Harry Yaojun Yan

  National Observatory

  3 shared