Nick Couldry

Nick Couldry is a sociologist of media and culture whose research has increasingly focused on the implications of Big Data, AI and digital platforms for the sorts of societies in which we can live. He has led funded empirical research into media consumption and public engagement (the ESRC-funded ‘Public Connection’ project (2003-2006), digital storytelling (the EPSRC funded Storycircle project, 2020-2013) and ‘the price of connection’ (Chicago University/Templeton Foundation, 2016-17).

In the past decade his work has principally turned to social theory, and he has been called ‘probably the world’s preeminent social theorist of the media’ [from a publisher review]. Professor Couldry’s earlier work focussed on media audiences, citizens’ possibilities of political engagement, and their possibilities for voice. Over the past decade, he has turned to the implications of data extraction on power relations and the organisation of social life, being particularly associated with the framework of data colonialism, developed since 2016 with the Mexican/US writer Ulises Mejias.

His latest book is Data Grab: The New Colonialism of Big Tech and How to Fight Back, co-authored with Ulises Mejias (Penguin/W. H. Allen February 2024, published in the US with Chicago University Press, whose German publication was published in May by Fischer). His next solo book will be The Space of the World: Can Human Solidarity Survive Social Media and What if it Can’t? (Polity, October 2024). Future writing will focus on the impacts of AI on human beings’ conception of their own rationality. The Space of the World and two future books will form a trilogy under the name Humanising the Future for Polity Press.

Professor Couldry has been awarded honorary doctorates by Sodertorn University (Sweden) and Tampere University (Finland), and has been a Visiting Professor at MIT, Roskilde University, University of Technology Sydney, Stockholm University and Sodertorn University. Since 2017 he has been a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University.

Professor Couldry has given over 70 keynotes and major public lectures (in 25 countries), and over 200 other talks and lectures. He was elected a Fellow of the International Communication Association in 2017. He is the author or editor of 16 books and over 75 journal articles.

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