Nicole Cohen

The Sage Handbook of Digital Labour

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.

“Not just for coal miners”: Unionization in U.S. art museums This paper examines a collective identity shift among unionizing art museum workers. Pulling data from an action research study of museum union members, I argue that museum workers today are explicit...

Thanks, Tim! This particular quote is from Amanda Tobin Ripley's excellent article on museum workers organizing, "“Not just for coal miners”: Unionization in U.S. art museums": onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

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.’”

Investigating a Possible Scammer in Journalism’s AI Era | The Local A suspicious pitch from a freelancer led editor Nicholas Hune-Brown to dig into their past work. By the end, four publications, including The Guardian and Dwell, had removed articles from their sites.

"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...

The Labour of Architecture: Book Launch + Panel Discussion Join us for a book talk + panel discussion to celebrate the release of The Labor of Architecture, by C. G. Beck.

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...

AI ‘Workslop’ Is Killing Productivity and Making Workers Miserable AI slop is taking over workplaces. Workers said that they thought of their colleagues who filed low-quality AI work as "less creative, capable, and reliable than they did before receiving the output."

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...

The Labour of Architecture: Book Launch + Panel Discussion Join us for a book talk + panel discussion to celebrate the release of The Labor of Architecture, by C. G. Beck.

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...

Stop the Presses | Tadhg Larabee In Pittsburgh, one newsroom has been on strike for more than two years. Something has to give. Will it be the workers?

“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: special issue on the legacy of Vincent Mosco Special issue of Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation on Control, Survival, Struggle: Rethinking and Renewing Vincent Mosco’s Political Economy of Communication The theme When…

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...

The Political Economy of News Media and Journalism by @errolsalamon.bsky.social‬: doi.org/10.1093/acre...

... and more to come!

Telecommunications Policy by @christopherali.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1093/acre...

Mexico Digital Media/Industries by Rodrigo Gómez and César Bárcenas: doi.org/10.1093/acre...

Alternative/Activist Media and Practice by Alessandra Renzi: doi.org/10.1093/acre...

The Labor of Newswork and Journalism by Tai Neilson: doi.org/10.1093/acre...

Global Political Economy, Platforms and Media Industries by Dal Yong Jin: doi.org/10.1093/acre...

The Political Economy of U.S. Sports Media by Jennifer Proffitt (@iamapghfan.bsky.social): doi.org/10.1093/acre...

The Political Economy of Museums by @camillemarys.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1093/acre...

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...

AGAINST AI

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

Home | Unfair Canada

@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

We look at 69 contracts negotiated during the new media union movement’s most active years, and find that worker-led, collective bargaining can materially and meaningfully address equity and diversity in media.

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/...

Labors of love and organizing for solidarity within, across, and beyond the cultural industries | National Council on Public History At NCPH's annual meeting in Montreal this year, one session focused on how workers across industries are demanding structural change through an unprecedented wave of labor organizing.

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...

What It’s Like to Be a Student Who Hates ChatGPT “Everyone is using it”—almost everyone.

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.