About

I’m Director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford in the UK. I served as Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Press/Politics from 2015 to 2017.

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. I have also taught political communication at Roskilde University (RUC) in Denmark (I’m on leave from my position as associate professor there).

You can contact me through Oxford at rasmus.nielsen [at] politics [dot] ox [dot] ac [dot] uk. I check it too often.

Most of my research deals with (a) news media organizations and their ongoing transformations, (b) changing forms of digital media use in political and news-related contexts, and (c) political communication and campaign practices.

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 and the institutions that underpin them and make them possible. I also retain a side interest in social theory.

I am involved in a wide range of different comparative research projects around the future of news, the changing business of journalism, and the rise of digital media.

Previously, I have done work on changes in the news industry in various countries, including this book, which I co-edited in 2010 and this report, which was published in 2012, as well as 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 “monograph” (single-authored book) deals with this and has been published by Princeton University Press.

In 2014, I was awarded the Tietgen Prize, given annually to a young Nordic researcher from the humanities and social sciences for socially relevant research published at the highest international level. The same year, I won the Doris Graber Award for best book published in political communication in the last ten years for Ground Wars.

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’ve edited the International Journal of Press/Politics since 2015.

I serve on the editorial board of Digital Journalism, Journalism: Theory, Practice, Critique, the Journal of Information Technology & Politics, and Social Media and Society.

I have served as a reviewer for the American Sociological Review, Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory, International Journal of Communication, the International Journal of Press/Politics, Internet & Policy, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Journal of e-Democracy and Open Government, Journal of Information Technology & Politics, Mobile Media & Communication, New Media & Society, Party Politics, Politics, Sur le Journalisme, and Tidsskriftet Politik and for book manuscripts in media and communications for Oxford University Press, Polity Press, Routledge, and Sage.

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.