Parker Bach

Parker Bach is a Ph.D. candidate and Roy H. Park Fellow. He earned a bachelor’s degree in media studies and a master’s degree in media, culture and technology from the University of Virginia, and recently worked for Microsoft Research’s Social Media Collective. Parker is a mixed-methods researcher, employing interviews, ethnography, content analysis, text analytics and network analysis. His research focuses on technology and digital politics, and his ongoing dissertation project focuses on political prediction markets (e.g. Kalshi, Polymarket), the practices and information environment of traders on these markets, and how market prices are interpreted as public opinion.

Parker is particularly interested in the implications of prediction markets for 21st-century democracy and its entanglement with wealth, play, the internet and uncertainty. His other research has featured topics like political influencers on TikTok, digital political satire, the classification of AI harms in tech industry research publications and the role of strategic ambiguity in political communication.

At Carolina, Parker is an affiliate of the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life and a Maynard E. Adams Fellow in the Public Humanities. He was the runner-up in the university’s 2025 Three Minute Thesis competition. He has also taught MEJO 141: Media Ethics and MEJO 144: Introduction to Political Communication.

Education

• M.A., University of Virginia
• B.A., University of Virginia