T. Leo Cao

Researching and teaching cultural institutions, media technologies, and digital platforms

The medium may not be the message, but the museum has always offered the public a fundamentally mediated experience. My research examines this mediation process, the very intersection of memory institutions, media technologies, visual arts, and cultural policies, focusing especially on the issues of digitization and platformization. Previously, I have also examined the use of surveillance technologies in the smart city context, focusing on issues of privacy, datafication, ethical governance, and public engagement.

media studies, platform studies, museum studies, digital humanities, cultural policy

Experience

Glasgow Caledonian University

2025-Present, Lecturer in Digital Media, Department of Media and Journalism

Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS)

2024-2025, Fellow, Platformed patrimony: analyzing the digital dance of museums with platforms in Germany

Leiden University

2024-2025, Lecturer, Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS)

Europeana Foundation

2024, Intern, New Professionals in Digital Cultural Heritage

University of Texas at Austin

2021-2023, Graduate Research Assistant, Technology & Information Policy Institute

Project: Being Watched: Embedding Ethics in Public Cameras

2023, Archival Assistant, The Art & Art History Collection

2020, Graduate Archer Fellow, The Archer Center

2019-2021, Teaching Assistant, Moody College of Communication

Earlier

2020, Research Assistant, John W. Kluge Center, U.S. Library of Congress

2020, Research Intern, Museum Computer Network (MCN)

2019, Archive & Production Intern, Impakt Center for Media Culture

2017-2019, Educational Consultant, Shuimu Lexiang Education & Technology

2017-2018, Contributing Writer, The Art Newspaper China

2012-2015, Teacher, XDF ~~New Oriental~~ Education & Technology Group

2011-2012, Teacher, Tsinghua Primary School

2010, Research Intern, Technische Universität Berlin

Education

PhD, University of Texas at Austin

2024, Journalism and Media

Graduate Certificate: Museum Studies, Digital Studies, Communication, Information, and Cultural Policy

Dissertation: Platforming digital cultural heritage: history, curation, and platform governance on Google Arts & Culture

Committee: Sharon Strover (chair), Caroline Frick, Astrid Runggaldier, Bjarki Valtýsson, Karin de Wild

MA, University of Amsterdam

2019, Media Studies

Thesis: Extended browsing: the affordances and platform politics of activist browser extensions

Supervisors: Lonneke van der Velden, Marc Tuters

MA, Leiden University

2017, Arts and Culture (Research)

Thesis: Google Street View: from spatiotemporal construction to algorithmic intervention

Supervisors: Helen Westgeest, Eric de Bruyn

BA, Tsinghua University

2012, English

2009-2010, DePauw University, Study Abroad

Publications

Cao, T. L. (2025). From platform governance to institutional practice: experimentation, misalignment, and contingent adoption of Google Arts & Culture. Platforms & Society, 2. https://doi.org/10.1177/29768624251349092

Cao, T. L. (2024). Rethinking openness: a social constructivist approach to the promises of the new museology. Internet Histories, 8(1-2), 114–135. https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2023.2244341

Riedl, M. J., Strover, S., Cao, T. L., Choi, J. R., Limov, B., & Schnell, M. (2022). Reverse-engineering political protest: the Russian Internet Research Agency in the Heart of Texas. Information, Communication & Society, 25(15), 2299–2316. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1934066

Cao, T. L. (under review). The evolutionary trajectory of Google Arts & Culture: from convergence and divergence to editorial intervention. Convergence.

Cao, T. L. (under review). Situating digitization in cultural policy: public support and institutional needs in the United States. International Journal of Cultural Policy.

Conference presentations

Cao, T. L. (2025, July). Editorializing open culture through platform intervention: the case of Curationist [Paper presentation]. DH2025: Digital Humanities Conference 2025, Lisbon, Portugal.

Cao, T. L. (2025, June). Reconstructing platform timeline: a story of convergence and divergence on Google Arts & Culture [Paper presentation]. ICA 2025: The 75th Annual International Communication Association Conference, Denver, Colorado, USA.

Cao, T. L. (2025, January). From platform governance to institutional practice: how museums (actually) use Google Arts & Culture [Paper presentation]. The Art Museum in the Digital Age – 2025, virtual conference.

Cao, T. L. (2024, June). Digitization in context: computational analysis of institutional practices through grant applications [Paper presentation]. Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities (DARIAH) Annual Event 2024, Lisbon, Portugal.

Cao, T. L. (2024, January). “Skulls, wings, and a sky”: AI gamification and institutional autonomy on Google Arts & Culture [Paper presentation]. The Art Museum in the Digital Age – 2024, virtual conference.

Cao, T. L. (2024, January). Art, algorithms, and authority: the integration of AI on Google Arts & Culture [Paper presentation]. Shifting AI Controversies – Prompts, Provocations & Problematizations for Society-Centered AI, Berlin, Germany.

Cao, T. L. (2023, June). Rethinking openness: a social constructivist approach to the promises of the mew museology [Paper presentation]. RESAW 2023: Exploring the Archived Web During a Highly Transformative Age, Marseille, France.

Strover, S., Cao, T. L., & Woodward, E. (2023, May). Being watched: privacy values and policies in the U.S. municipal context [Paper presentation]. ICA 2023: The 73rd Annual International Communication Association Conference, Toronto, Canada.

Cao, T. L. (2023, April). Situating openness in the new museology: a social constructivist approach to the MuseWeb archive [Paper presentation]. MW2023: MuseWeb 2023, Washington DC, USA.

Cao, T. L., Strover, S., & Woodward, E. (2023, March). Surveillance and ethical governance: a contextual approach to privacy and smart city technologies [Conference session]. MozFest 2023: Autonomy & Governance, virtual conference.

Strover, S., Woodward, E., & Cao, T. L. (2022, October). Data, artificial intelligence, and (broken) promises of smart cities: managing surveillance technologies [Conference session]. ICEGOV 2022: The 15th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance, Guimarães, Portugal.

Cao, T. L. (2022, September). Situating digitization in cultural policy: public support and institutional needs in the United States [Paper presentation]. ICCPR 2022: The 12th International Conference on Cultural Policy Research, Antwerp, Belgium.

Cao, T. L. (2022, May). “Today’s top picks”: one network of canonization by Google Arts & Culture [Paper presentation]. ICA 2022: The 72nd Annual International Communication Association Conference, Paris, France.

Cao, T. L. (2022, March). Not all the art in the world: digitization and cultural diversity on Google Arts & Culture [Paper presentation]. MozFest 2022: Digitizing Cultures & Languages, virtual conference.

Strover, S., Esteva, M., Cao, T. L., & Park, S. (2021, October). Public policy meets public surveillance. [Paper presentation]. AoIR 2021: The 22nd Annual Meeting of the Association of Internet Researchers, virtual conference.

Strover, S., & Cao, T. L. (2021, September). Smart cities and ethical policies: the challenges of public cameras and AI [Paper presentation]. TPRC49: The 49th Annual Research Conference on Communications, Information, and Internet Policy, virtual conference.

Cao, T. L. (2021, June). Towards the establishment of a U.S. federal digitization task force [Paper presentation]. AAM 2021: The 2021 American Alliance of Museums Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo, virtual conference.

Cao, T. L. (2021, May). Museum digitization as essential care: A cultural policy analysis [Paper presentation]. ICA 2021: The 71st Annual International Communication Association Conference, virtual conference.

Riedl, M., Strover, S., Cao, T. L., Choi, J., Limov, B., & Schnell, M. (2021, May). Reverse-engineering political protest: the Russian Internet Research Agency in the heart of Texas [Paper presentation]. ICA 2021: The 71st Annual International Communication Association Conference, virtual conference.

Cao, T. L. (2020, October). Activist browser extensions as interface détournement: reminding, coping, and infrastructural alignment. [Paper presentation]. AoIR 2020: The 21st Annual Meeting of the Association of Internet Researchers, virtual conference.

INVITED TALKS

Cao, T. L. (2024, October). Cultural policy, museum digitization, and platforms [guest speaker]. J 395: Communication Law and Policy, University of Texas at Austin, online.

Cao, T. L. (2024, June). Google Arts & Culture and the platformization of digital cultural heritage [invited talk]. SAILS Symposium – Heritage: from physical to digital, Leiden.

Cao, T. L., Nelson, W., & Beacken, G. (2023, September). Being watched: embedding ethics in public cameras [poster presentation]. City of Austin & UT Austin Interlocal Agreement Showcase and Workshop, Austin.

Cao, T. L. (2023, April). Google Arts & Culture: digital platforms, artificial (un)intelligence, and museum collections [guest speaker]. J 351T: Technology and Culture, University of Texas at Austin, Austin.

Cao, T. L. (2023, February). Introduction to photography: from theory to practice [guest speaker]. COMM 465: Convergence Media, North Dakota State University, online.

Cao, T. L., Collier, C., & Kroos, B. (2022, April). Smart, equitable, responsive: can a city be all three? [panel discussion]. Good Systems Annual Symposium, Austin.

Cao, T. L. (2016, January). Urban happenings: a conceptual analysis of Martin Roemers’ Metropolis [invited talk]. Huis Marseille Museum for Photography, Amsterdam.