Editing Atrios (section)

== Biography ==

After obtaining his BA from the [[Indiana University of Pennsylvania]], Black obtained a [[PhD]] in [[economics]] from [[Brown University]] in 1999. He has worked at the [[London School of Economics]], the [[Université catholique de Louvain]], the [[University of California, Irvine]], and, most recently, [[Bryn Mawr College]]. He is now a Senior Fellow at the media research group [[Media Matters for America]].

Black began his online political life in Salon magazine's ''Tabletalk'' messageboards under the pseudonym of Kurt Foster, then began blogging as ''Atrios'', remaining [[pseudonym]]ous for several years, and even joking that he was actually a high school [[gym]] teacher. According to Black, the name "Atrios" is actually a (misspelled) reference to a character named Antrios in the [[Yasmina Reza]] play ''[['Art' (play)|'Art']]'' who paints the play's key "white painting on white canvas".

Before starting Eschaton, Black wrote (as Atrios) for the [[webzine]] [[Media Whores Online]] (now defunct). During the [[2004 Democratic National Convention]] in Boston, he revealed that he had accepted a job at Media Matters for America and allowed his name and photograph to be published. He later said that as an academic he blogged pseudonymously to avoid attacks like those later unleashed on [[Timothy Shortell]].<ref>{{cite web | url = http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_06_12_atrios_archive.html#111904910536820980|date=June 12, 2005 | first = Duncan| last = Black | publisher = Eschaton | accessdate = July 6, 2006 | title = And People Wondered... | archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20060629111506/http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_06_12_atrios_archive.html| archivedate= June 29, 2006 | url-status= live}}</ref> Atrios' blogging has been characterized as encouraging discourse and public deliberation.<ref>Reinwald, J. (2015). Networked Media, Networked Rhetorics: Attention and Deliberation in the Early Blogosphere. ''Argumentation And Advocacy'', (2), 146.</ref>