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Nicole Cohen

@nicolecohen.bsky.social

I research labour and media. Books: New Media Unions: Organizing Digital Journalists and Writers’ Rights: Freelance Journalism in a Digital Age | culturalworkersorganize.org

29 Posts772 Follower518 Folgt
Nieman Lab@niemanlab.org · 6mo ago

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...

ProPublica’s union authorizes the first U.S. newsroom strike over AI protections

The Guild has voted to walk off the job if ProPublica doesn’t agree to a ban on AI-related layoffs, as well as “just cause” for firings, seniority provisions during layoffs, and wage increases.

niemanlab.org

Nicole Cohen@nicolecohen.bsky.social · 6mo ago

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 Mark Rosenfeld Fellowship in Higher Education Journalism - OCUFA

Deadline for applications: March 20, 2026 Rationale There is a marked shortage of informed investigative reporting on Canadian higher education issues in the Canadian media. The Ontario Confederation ...

tinyurl.com

Enda Brophy@enda-b.bsky.social · 9mo ago

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...

Register – Notes Toward a Digital Workers’ Inquiry book launch – Friends House

Notes Toward a Digital Workers’ Inquiry book launch – Friends House, Thu 12 Feb 2026 - Join us as we celebrate the launch of Notes Toward a Digital Workers Inquiry, a brand new book full of first-hand...

tickettailor.com

Nicole Cohen@nicolecohen.bsky.social · 10mo ago

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.

Nicole Cohen@nicolecohen.bsky.social · 12mo ago

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...

Tim Newman@tnewmsblues.bsky.social · 10mo ago

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.’”

Abstract This article maps and explains the recent surge of unionization in media and cultural industries in the United States and Canada. We structure our analysis around a three-part argument. First, union organizing is intensifying in media and cultural industries, evident in the number of workplaces that have unionized and the surge’s expanding reach across fields. Second, workers’ motivations to organize extend beyond compensation and job security to include racial diversity, equity, and care for their work. And third, the union wave can be understood through the lens of the circulation of struggles, an autonomist concept that enables us to theorize the dynamics propelling the union surge and its implications. Circulation of struggles points to cultural workers’ strategic position in the labor economy as they generate a wider movement to organize media and culture and spread critical perspectives on work by counter-mobilizing the very communicative capacities that employers in these industries seek to control.
Nicole Cohen@nicolecohen.bsky.social · 10mo ago

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...

Jason McBride@jasonmcbride.bsky.social · 10mo ago

"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...

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.

thelocal.to

404 Media@404media.co · 12mo ago

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-...

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."

404media.co

Nicole Cohen@nicolecohen.bsky.social · last yr.

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...

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…

wolg.wordpress.com

Nicole Cohen@nicolecohen.bsky.social · last yr.

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/...

Diversity and Equity from Below: Media Worker Unions and Collective Bargaining

This article examines how media workers tackle equity and diversity from below via collective bargaining. In a review of 69 contracts negotiated during the new media union movement’s most active years...

journals.publishing.umich.edu

C ✊ UVW-CWA@ckjong.bsky.social · last yr.

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...

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.

ncph.org

Hamilton Nolan@hamiltonnolan.bsky.social · last yr.

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_...

Writing the AI Rulebook

The pursuit of collective commitment, with journalism’s future at stake

cjr.org

The NewsGuild of New York@nyguild.bsky.social · last yr.

A DISGRACE: Today management at @businessinsider.com sent out an email announcing layoffs that will affect many of our Insider Union members. The email references how difficult the day will be for everyone – then takes a sharp right turn into “we’re all in on AI.” ....

Gillian Brockell@gillianbrockell.com · last yr.

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.

A screenshot of a ChatGPT conversation reading: "can you write something about robert e. lee in the voice of washington post staff writer gillian brockell?" "Certainly! Here's an excerpt written in the voice of Gillian Brockell, a staff writer at The Washington Post, reflecting on Robert E. Lee's legacy: The Complicated Legacy of Robert E. Lee: A Figure Divided by History By Gillian Brockell When Robert E. Lee's name is invoked, it is often as a symbol of Southern pride military brilliance, or a tragic, doomed cause. But history has a way of shifting its lens, and in recent years, the image of Lee -- the Confederate general, the hero of lost causes -- has become increasingly more fraught. The man who stood as the face of a rebellion that tore the nation apart now stands at the center of an ongoing reckoning over the Confederacy's legacy, and our struggle to reconcile memory with reality."
Navneet Alang@navneetalang.com · last yr.

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? nalang@thestar.ca

Labor Tech Research Network@labortechresearchnetwork.org · 2y ago

🚨 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>