Thomas Poell

Thomas Poell is Professor of Data, Culture & Institutions at the University of Amsterdam and director of the Research Priority Area on Global Digital Cultures. His research is focused on the societal consequences of the rise of digital platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Spotify, and WeChat. He has published extensively on social media and popular protests in Canada, Egypt, Tunisia, India and China, as well as on the role of these media in the development of new forms of journalism. In the coming years, Poell will focus on the digitisation of cultural institutions in the light of the proliferation of data, the growing importance of AI, and the rise of major platform corporations. He will stimulate and develop new research on this transformation, which leads to a reorganization and rethinking of museums, libraries, and archives, as well as to creative and economic upheaval in the television, music, games, and news industries. Particular attention will be devoted to regional variations in how these changes unfold and what the political and cultural implications are.

Poell is co-author of The Platform Society with José van Dijck and Martijn de Waal (Oxford University Press, 2018) and of the forthcoming Platforms and Cultural Production (Polity, 2021) with David Nieborg and Brooke Erin Duffy. Furthermore, he co-edited The Sage Handbook of Social Media (Sage, 2018), Social Media Materialities and Protest (Routledge, 2018), and Global Cultures of Contestation (Palgrave/McMillan, 2017).

Positions

• Aug. 2009 - Assistant professor of New Media and Digital Culture (1,0 fte) University of Amsterdam, Faculty of the Humanities, Department of Media Studies
• Aug. 2005 - Aug. 2009 Lecturer (0,8 fte) Utrecht University, Faculty of the Humanities,Department of Media and Culture Studies
• April 2005-Nov. 2005 Lecturer (0,4 fte) Erasmus University Rotterdam, Faculty of History and Arts
• Feb. 2002 - Aug.2005 Lecturer (0,2 fte) Utrecht University, Faculty of the Humanities, Department of Media and Culture Studies
• Jan. 2000 - April. 2005 PhD-student (0,8 fte) Utrecht University, Faculty of the Humanities, Department of History. Project: The Democratic Paradox. Dutch Revolutionary Struggles over Democratisation and Centralisation (1780-1813.)
• Sept.- Nov. 1999 Contract researcher (0,6 fte) International Institute of SocialHistory, Amsterdam Project: Collectie Velle

Other Professional Positions

• February 2016 - Program Director of the Research Master Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam.
• September 2015 - Project leader of the Audiovisual Data and Media Studies of the national infrastructural project CLARIAH (NWO).
• April 2012 - 2016 Member of the editorial board of the Illustere School of the Faculty of the Humanities, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands.
• Sept. 2011 - Program leader of the Amsterdam Centre for Globalisation Studies (ACGS), University of Amsterdam, Netherlands.
• Sept. 2011 - 2014 Member of the board of the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA)
• Jan. - Sept. 2011 Interim team coordinator of the New Media team, Department of Media Studies, Faculty ofthe Humanities, University of Amsterdam.
• Sept. 2010 - Member of the Opleidingscommissie(OC) ofthe Department of Media Studies, Faculty ofthe Humanities, University of Amsterdam.

Visiting positions

• January - June 2015 - Research Associate at UC Santa Cruz.
• May 2015 - Visiting lecturer at the University of Helsinki.

Training

• 2010 Participation in the Digital Methods Summer School, Training Certificate Program & Advanced Projects Program, Faculty of theHumanities, University of Amsterdam, 28 June-9 July, 16 - 27 August.
• 2006-2007 BKO (BasicQualification Education). Faculty of the Humanities, Utrecht University
• 2002 Writing Scientific Texts in English for Publication. James Boswell Institute
• 2000-2001 Ph.D. training program of the European graduate School for Training in Economic and Social-Historical Research (ESTER)
• 1998 Graduated cum laude in Political Science and International Relations at the University of Amsterdam
• 1996-'97 Academic year at the New School for Social Research and Columbia University in New York

Publications

Books

• Poell, T., D.B. Nieborg & B.E. Duffy (under contract). Platforms and Cultural Production. Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Van Dijck, J., T. Poell & M. de Waal. 2018. The Platform Society. Public values in a connective world. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Burgess, J., A. Marwick & T. Poell (Eds.) 2018 . The Sage Handbook of Social Media. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
• Mortensen, M., C. Neumayer & T. Poell (Eds.) 2018. Social Media Materialities and Protest: Critical reflections. London: Routledge.
• Celikates, R., J. de Kloet, E. Peeren & T. Poell (Eds.) 2017. Global Cultures of Contestation. London: Palgrave/McMillan.
• Van Dijck, J., T. Poell & M. de Waal. 2016. De Platformsamenleving. Strijd om publieke waarden in een online wereld. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.