Happy May Day! To mark the occasion, we’ve updated our timeline of the hundreds of newsrooms workers have unionized in the US and Canada since 2015: culturalworkersorganize.org/digital-medi... Solidarity with all the media workers fighting to do their work sustainably and equitably ✊

The @propublicaguild.org's vote marks the first time a major U.S. newsroom has authorized a strike, at least in part, over AI protections. www.niemanlab.org/2026/03/prop...

Are you a journalist in Canada who wants to investigate a story about post-secondary education? The OCUFA Mark Rosenfeld Fellowship in Higher Education Journalism ($10,000) is accepting applications until March 20, 2026. Happy to chat about the process: tinyurl.com/4vrnf4n8

The Sage Handbook of Digital Labour, edited by ICCIT professor Julie Yujie Chen, has been released. This anthology offers a comprehensive exploration of the multifaceted and evolving concept of digital labour. uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/th...

We will be launching Notes Toward a Digital Workers' Inquiry in Toronto on Feb 12! Thanks to the Leo Panitch School for Socialist Education & the Digital Labour research Group at U of T for organizing: www.tickettailor.com/events/panit...

Hear from our members and those across @newsguild.org who are sounding the alarm about artificial intelligence -- and how you can join our fight. #NewsNotSlop

The deadline for the Canadian Communication Association's 2026 conference is extended to Dec. 15. Happy to share the @alicetiara.bsky.social will deliver our keynote lecture. Hope to see many colleagues in Windsor in June.

Loved this fantastic article! “Union organizing, however, makes power relations clear to cultural workers and helps them recognize their status as such. As a museum worker put it, ‘I think what unionizing does is make visible that your job is actually work. You are a worker.’”

"Every media era gets the fabulists it deserves." This @nickhunebrown.bsky.social piece about journalism grifters in the age of AI slop is fantastic, bonkers & sad on so many levels thelocal.to/investigatin...

The Union Surge in Media and Cultural Industries: Mapping the Circulation of Struggles: new article with Greig de Peuter in the Journal of Labor and Society (open access) brill.com/view/journal...

Book launch! The Labor of Architecture: Creativity, Design, and the Building of a New Class Consciousness by C.G. Beck. 10/24 in Toronto. www.eventbrite.ca/e/the-labour...

A new study, based on a survey of 1,150 workers suggests that the injection of AI tools into the workplace has not resulted in a magic productivity boom and instead increased the amount of time that workers say they spend fixing low-quality AI-generated “work.” 🔗 www.404media.co/ai-workslop-...

The Canadian Communication Association will host its 2026 conference at the University of Windsor in Windsor, Ontario June 2-4, 2026. Call for papers in French and English: acc-cca.ca/index.php/co...

Book launch! The Labor of Architecture: Creativity, Design, and the Building of a New Class Consciousness by C.G. Beck. 10/24 in Toronto. www.eventbrite.ca/e/the-labour...

“The fact that the strikers are still standing is the product of a once-in-a-generation collision between an exceptionally dedicated union and an eccentric family unwilling to accept anything short of the union’s dissolution.”

Call for Papers: Control, Survival, Struggle: Rethinking and Renewing Vincent Mosco’s Political Economy of Communication. A special issue of Work Organisation, Labour & Globalization I'm co-editing w/ @ursulahuws.bsky.social, Leslie Shade, and Catherine McKercher wolg.wordpress.com/special-issu...

It’s syllabus season! For your consideration, some new articles I helped commission for the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication’s political economy section: Political Economy of Advertising by @matthewcrain.bsky.social and Lee McGuigan: doi.org/10.1093/acre...

teachers! excited to share a new website at this late date of Aug 15 to try to help us collectively prepare for back to school in the interpretative humanities classroom assaulted by the AI grift, so we don't have to go it alone. take a look, share, + most importantly: CONTRIBUTE against-a-i.com

@aircanada.bsky.social does not pay their flight attendants for essential duties that they perform. The quality of the Air Canada flight experience has plummeted & flight prices have skyrocketed, but AC can't be bothered to properly pay their crew. Take action here: unfaircanada.com

New article out in Media Industries on how media workers tackle equity from below via collective bargaining, co-authored with @madisontrusolino.bsky.social and Natasha Grzincic. Open access: journals.publishing.umich.edu/mij/article/...

A great blog post by @amandatobinripley.bsky.social about our panel discussion on worker organizing in the cultural industries at the National Council on Public History Conference earlier this year. It was an honour to be there alongside some amazing organizers/researchers. ncph.org/history-at-w...

you've heard about the college kids who can't do anything without ChatGPT's help—but what about the students who oppose generative A.I. for myriad reasons and refuse to rely on it as a shortcut? well, I found and spoke with a few of them here: slate.com/life/2025/07...

Solidarity with our CP members seeking a fair wage hike after years of falling behind.

For @poweratwork.bsky.social, Greig de Peuter and I wrote about the tensions and affinities between unions and co-ops in media, culture and tech poweratwork.us/unions-coops...

Apart from its obvious threat to labor, the problem with AI in journalism is that **by its nature** it cannot ever be accountable--its choices are not transparent--and therefore replacing any work from human journalists with AI is just plain unethical. www.cjr.org/business_of_...

SCOOP: Politico's newsroom will show down with bosses in a first-of-its-kind battle over AI www.wired.com/story/politi...

The Canadian Communication Association's annual conference will take place from June 2-5! ICCIT director and professor Sarah Sharma will be presenting the keynote, entitled "All the Insufferable Tools." acc-cca.ca/index.php/co...

When I left the Washington Post in 2023, my colleagues and I were worried AI would hoover up our work and enable "zombies" to churn out stories based on our reporting and writing styles. Today WaPo announced a partnership with OpenAI. And here it is: Zombie Gillian Brockell. I DID NOT WRITE THIS.

Are you a Canadian researcher/academic concerned/possibly affected if the Trump administration threatens funding if work is related to "DEI", climate etc. and want to say something about it? [email protected]

🚨 Our next Speaker Series event will be this Fri, March 14 @ 11am ET (US) Nicole Cohen & Greig de Peuter will join us to discuss "The Union Surge in Media and Cultural Industries: Mapping the Circulation of Struggles." To RSVP and get the Zoom link, email Angelica <angelica.martinez.ochoa @ gmail>

I’m honoured to be giving the 2025 Dallas Smythe Memorial Lecture at Simon Fraser University in a few weeks. If you’re in Vancouver, come say hi!

If anyone I know is in Toronto at the end of the month, swing by to hear me talk about some ideas I am exploring in relation to platform work and digital labor.

JOIN US: Media and Journalism unions are coming together to fight back against Trump’s attacks on press freedom. Join us on March 4 at 1PM ET to discuss the global repercussions and how we defend independent media. RSVP: bit.ly/TAPF2025

In @niemanlab.org today, @jnelz.bsky.social and I make the case for a labour education in journalism school: www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/jour...

How can journalism educators prepare students to navigate the challenges of today's news industry? @nicolecohen.bsky.social and I tackle this question in @niemanlab.org. www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/jour...

Join us March 5–6, 2025 for "Space Out! Interstellar Media," a research symposium on the media, culture, and life in the cosmos. www.utm.utoronto.ca/iccit/upcomi...

Bracing for Poilievre: Canada’s likely next prime minister threatens to gut the country’s press. www.cjr.org/analysis/can...

The late great Vincent Mosco’s memoir is now available open access and in print bit.ly/3CFBgJy Thanks to Dan Schiller for foreword & kind words of endorsers incl @fuchschristian.bsky.social @victorpickard.bsky.social @nicolecohen.bsky.social & enda-b.bsky.social #openaccess #criticalcommunications

Next week: Don’t miss the launch of the new report “Artists on Basic Income: Beyond Precarious Livelihoods”! The event will take place on Zoom on January 23 from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. (ET). Registration and details here: www.imaa.ca/artists-on-b...

A must-watch! Tanner’s new book is excellent and an exceptional resource for those of us teaching work and labour in media and cultural and digital industries.

Job Opportunity: PressProgress is hiring a Labour Reporter. This is a permanent role and will join our team of full-time, unionized investigative journalists. Closing date January 31, 2025. #CdnMediaJobs

We are the Canadian workers of The Athletic and this morning we filed with the Canadian Industrial Relations Board our intent to unionize with CWA Canada. Later today, we'll do the same with the Ontario Labour Relations Board. Join us as we organize.

COMMENTARY by @ulises-mejias.bsky.social Ulises A. Mejias: The Core of Gen-AI is Incompatible with Academic Integrity futureu.education/higher-ed/co...

Call for Submissions: Union for Democratic Communications (UDC) 2025 Conference Conference Theme: The Future We Want: Resistance and Resolve. Conference Dates: June 19 - 22, 2025. Abstract Submission Deadline: February 2, 2025. Location: University of Washington, Tacoma. www.democraticcomm.org

New article with @jnelz.bsky.social, where we make the case for labour-focused journalism education: shorturl.at/4tLW9

Last night I saw @brettstory.bsky.social’s incredible film Union, which follows workers organizing the first Amazon warehouse and forming the Amazon Labor Union. So powerful and inspiring. You can rent it during Black Friday (and donate screenings to Amazon workers): gathr.com/vod/15c99c8b...

My unit at UTM is hiring! Assistant Prof, Teaching Stream, Design and Production Our department is really quite amazing. jobs.utoronto.ca/job/Mississa...

📰 You joined a (journalism) union—now what? Join Danielle Newsome of The NewsGuild & the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) to discuss how unions can protect & empower YOU. 📅 TOMORROW, 7 PM ET 🔗: bit.ly/JournalismUnionsWebinar

CfP for IAMCR 2025 in Singapore is now live! Here is the link for Political Economy Section CfP: iamcr.org/singapore202...