Debashis "Deb" Aikat
Associate Professor and Media Futurist

Associate Professor Debashis "Deb" Aikat is the Media Futurist in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). He teaches online research and reporting to journalism and mass communication students and conducts research on Internet applications and the future of communication. Aikat (pronounced EYE-cut) is an award-winning teacher and researcher on the impact of communication technologies and social aspects of interactive technologies.

Along with published book chapters, Aikat's articles have appeared in refereed research publications of the Microsoft Corporation, International Radio and Television Society Foundation, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group for DOCumentation (SIGDOC), Electronic Journal of Communication/La Revue Electronique de Communication, and Convergence: The Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. He is a member of the editorial board of Journal of Magazine and New Media Research.

Apart from Internet classes on campus, his popular courses are now offered online on the Web. In fall 1997 Aikat developed JoMC 149 Introduction to Internet Issues and Concepts as a first-of-its-kind, pedagogically-innovative distance education journalism course at UNC-CH using the Web as a virtual classroom. In Fall 2001 he developed another online course JoMC 191.1: The Global Impact of New Communication Technologies.

Aikat earned his Ph. D. in Mass Communication and Journalism from the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University in 1995. His dissertation, "Adventure in Cyberspace: Exploring the Information Content of the World Wide Web Pages on the Internet," was among the first studies of its kind in the field.

A native of India, Aikat earned a B. A. with honors in English literature from the University of Calcutta in 1984. In 1990, he was ranked first in order of merit in the M. A. Journalism program of the University of Calcutta. From 1984 to 1992, Aikat worked in India for The Telegraph newspaper and BBC World Service. He has received several honors and awards for professional excellence and research in journalism.