
REGINOLD ROYSTON Ph.D.
Author of
Pan African Futurism
Ghana and the Paradox of Technology for Development (Univ. of California Press 2025)
Scholarship and Teaching
Aural Circuits: Soulcraft in Footwork and Azonto
Africa + Podcasting
Code & Power: An Intersectional Analysis of Web Culture
Africa + The Internet — Digital Diasporas
Areas of research:
Civic App development
Community & Technology Engagement
IT infrastructure & media in Africa
Black social media
History and Philosophy of Technology
Online Education
Black Diaspora Studies
Internet Citizenship
Internet Citizenship
Internet Citizenship is UC Berkeley's first online digital humanities course, a mini-MOOC with 100-200 students.
I served as a lead lecturer, researcher, course designer, and helped develop the course's digital architecture.
Greg Niemeyer, Ashley Ferro-Murray and myself devised this course to teach New Media design and social impact, working from the disciplines of Computer Science, Social Science, and Arts Practice.
A "maker" course focused on digital literacy, this class utilized both asynchronous and live interactions, via video chat sessions. We deployed a "flipped" classroom, pre-recording lectures.
In 2012, we were awarded a research grant from a HASTAC-MacArthur Foundation partnership to research the impact of this virtual classroom.
In subsequent years, I have re-developed this class to focus on IT Development in Africa and the Developing World.
The video at top right shows a walk-through of our course Web site (developed in Drupal). Bottom right is an example of one online lecture.






