Rohit Chopra is Professor in the Department of Communication at Santa Clara University and has been a Visiting Scholar at the Center for South Asia at Stanford University. His research covers several areas including: global online communities, with a focus on Hindu nationalist and right-wing groups; violence, hate speech, and rights in online and physical publics; the relationship of media, culture, and political memory; and disability in global culture and media.
Rohit is the author of The Gita for a Global World: Ethical Action in an Age of Flux (Westland, 2021), The Virtual Hindu Nation: Saffron Nationalism and New Media (HarperCollins, 2019), and Technology and Nationalism in India: Cultural Negotiations from Colonialism to Cyberspace (Cambria, 2008). He is also the co-editor of a forthcoming special section on “Religion and its Publics” in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East (2025), co-editor of Global Media, Culture, and Identity: Theory, Cases, and Approaches (Routledge, 2011), and editor of a special issue of the Economic and Political Weekly (2011) on the theme of the resurgence of empire. He has also published articles in a number of leading journals, including the Emory International Law Review, Socialist Studies, New Media and Society, the International Journal of Communication, Global Media and Communication, and First Monday, in addition to authoring numerous book chapters.
He is currently working on two books: an academic monograph on the political memory of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in India in 1992 as reflected in various media forms, archives, and genres, and a trade book on disability in global culture.
Rohit also writes on media, politics, society, and culture for a number of international media organizations. His articles have been published in Time, Conversation, BBC India, South China Morning Post, Outlook India, Scroll India, Wire India, LiveMint, Print India, Quartz, Caravan India, and New Inquiry, and he has been cited as an expert in Al Jazeera, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, NPR, Wired, Vice, the Guardian, Voice of America, Religion News Network, Buzzfeed, and Business Insider, among other media outlets.
Rohit co-founded and co-hosted the India Explained podcast, which ran from 2018 to 2023. He has served as a consultant or expert for global government and private sector organizations with regard to the impact of legacy media, new media, and social media on diversity, human rights, and politics. Rohit is also a part of the South Asia Scholarly Activist Collective, an initiative committed to inclusive politics, academic freedom, and scholarship in the humanities.
