I’m assistant professor of communications at Roskilde University (RUC) in Denmark and (part-time) Research Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford in the UK, where I was based 2010-2012. Before that, I did my PhD in Communications at Columbia University, working at the Graduate School of Journalism and teaching at the School of International and Public Affairs.
You can contact me at rasmuskleisnielsen [at] gmail [dot] com. I check it too often. Alternatively, try my Danish cell (+45) 42 41 24 78.
Most of my research deals with (a) political communication and campaign practices, (b) digital politics, and (c) news media organizations and their ongoing transformations. My general interest is in the intersection between old organizations and new technologies, and in particular the various forms of civic engagement and popular participation that emerge and are enabled there. I also retain a side interest in social theory.
Currently, I am part of a larger group of researchers developing an international, comparative project on the changing business of journalism, examining the impact of the rise of the internet and the global recession on commercial news media in a wide range of different democracies. A first installment of the work coming out of this project is this book, which I co-edited in 2010.
Previously, I have done ethnographic research on the wider ramifications of American political campaigns’ practices of mobilizing people on a large scale to use personal contact as a form of political communication, working through things like canvassing and phone banking, and based on recent developments in information and communication technologies. My first so-called “monograph” (single-authored book) deals with this and has been published by Princeton University Press.
In the past, I have held jobs in administration, teaching, and editing. I have lived in Denmark, England, Germany, and the United States, and suspect I may add a couple more to that list over the years.
Education
2006-2010 PhD in Communications (with distinction), Columbia University
2005-2006 Fulbright/DAF Student at the New School for Social Research
2003-2006 MA in Political Science, University of Copenhagen
2002-2003 MA in Political Theory (with distinction), University of Essex
1999-2002 BA in Political Science, University of Copenhagen
Centers
In addition, I am or have been affiliated with:
Oxford Internet Institute (OII) at the University of Oxford, where I’m a research associate.
Center for Nyhedsforskning at Roskilde Universty, where I’m also an associate.
Center on Organizational Innovation (COI) at Columbia University.
Center for Business and Politics at Copenhagen Business School.
The Politics and Protest Workshop at CUNY. This is a continuation of Charles Tilly’s long-standing workshop on Contentious Politics, previously hosted at Michigan, the New School, and Columbia.
Professional service
I have served as a reviewer for Information, Communication & Society, New Media & Society, Journal of Politics, International Journal of Press/Politics, Human Communication, Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory, Digital Journalism, Policy & Internet, Tidsskriftet Politik, Journal of Information Technology & Politics and for book manuscripts in media and communications for Oxford University Press and Routledge. I sit on the editorial committee of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
From 2003 to 2005, I was the managing editor of Tidsskriftet Politik, an inter-disciplinary and peer-reviewed social science quarterly published by the Department of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen.
Copyright
Apart from the already published pieces, everything on the site is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
