Nicole Cohen

Associate Professor , Director of Doctoral (PhD) Program

Email: nicole.cohen@utoronto.ca

Office: BL 706, 713, 718

Website: https://nicolescohen.com/

Dr. Nicole S. Cohen is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information, and Technology at the University of Toronto Mississauga and holds a graduate appointment in the Faculty of Information. She is the author of Writers’ Rights: Freelance Journalism in a Digital Age (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016), which won the Gertrude J. Robinson Book Prize from the Canadian Communication Association in 2017. She is the co-author, with Greig de Peuter, of New Media Unions: Organizing Digital Journalists (Routledge 2020). Nicole researches in the area of political economy of communication, particularly labour and organizing in the media and cultural industries, media work and journalism. Her research has been published in South Atlantic Quarterly, The Communication Review, Canadian Journal of Communication Studies, Democratic Communique, and several edited books in communication studies. Nicole collaborates on the international SSHRC-funded project, Cultural Workers Organize.

Research

Nicole recently published her research on journalism, labour, and internships in the journals “Political Economy of Communication”, “Journalism Practice”, and “Digital Journalism.” She is currently co-authoring a book with Greig de Peuter on workers’ efforts to unionize digital media (for Routledge) and, with de Peuter and Enda Brophy, a book for Pluto Press on their Cultural Workers Organize research. Nicole received a SSHRC Insight Development Grant to continue her research on gender, race, and labour.
Selected Publications
- Nicole S. Cohen and Greig de Peuter. 2020. New Media Unions: Organizing Digital Journalists . Routledge.
- Nicole Cohen and Greig de Peuter. 2019. “Write, Post, Unionize: Journalists and Self-Organization.” Notes From Below 7
- Nicole S. Cohen and Greig de Peuter. 2019. “Interns Talk Back: Disrupting Media Narratives About Unpaid Work.” Political Economy of Communication 6(2): 3–24.
- Nicole S. Cohen, Andrea Hunter and Penny O’Donnell. 2019. “Bearing the Burden of Corporate Restructuring: Job Loss and Precarious Employment in Canadian Journalism.” Journalism Practice. Online Jan. 2019.
- Nicole S. Cohen. 2018. “Making It In A Freelance World.” In Making Media: Production, Practices, and Professions, edited by Mark Deuze and Mirjam Prenger, Amsterdam University Press, 235-246.
- Nicole S. Cohen and Greig de Peuter. 2018. “I Work at VICE Canada and I Need a Union: Organizing Digital Media.” In Labour Under Attack: Anti-Unionism in Canada, edited by Stephanie Ross and Larry Savage. Halifax and Winnipeg: Fernwood.
- Nicole S. Cohen. 2018. “At Work in the Digital Newsroom.” Digital Journalism. DOI: 10.1080/21670811.2017.1419821.
- Greig de Peuter, Nicole Cohen, and Francesca Saraco. 2017. “The Ambivalence of Coworking: On the Politics of an Emerging Work Practice.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 20(6): 687-706.
- Nicole S. Cohen. 2017. “Freelancing as the Good Life”? International Journal of Communication 11, Forum 2030–2032.
- Nicole S. Cohen. 2016. “Hustle.” Surplus3: Labour and the Digital. Edited and published by Letters and Handshakes.
- Nicole S. Cohen. 2016. Writers’ Rights: Freelance Journalism in a Digital Age (McGill-Queen’s University Press).
- Nicole S. Cohen. 2015. “Entrepreneurial Journalism and the Precarious State of Media Work.” South Atlantic Quarterly 114: 3 (July).
- Nicole S. Cohen. 2015. “From Pink Slips to Pink Slime: Transforming Media Labour in a Digital Age.” The Communication Review 18(2): 98-122.
- Enda Brophy, Nicole S. Cohen and Greig de Peuter. 2015. “Labour Messaging: Practices of Autonomous Communication.” The Routledge Companion to Labor and Media, edited by Richard Maxwell. New York: Routledge.
- Greig de Peuter and Nicole S. Cohen. 2015. “Emerging Labour Politics in Creative Industries.” In Routledge Companion to the Cultural Industries, edited by Kate Oakley and Justin O’Connor, 305-318. New York, Routledge.
- Nicole Cohen and Greig de Peuter. 2015. “Creative Accounting: W.A.G.E.’s Fight for Artists Fees.” Frieze, April, 25-26.
- Greig de Peuter, Enda Brophy and Nicole S. Cohen. 2014. “Locating Labour in Mobile Media Studies.” In The Routledge Companion to Mobile Media, edited by Gerard Goggin and Larissa Hjorth, 439-449. New York: Routledge.
- Nicole Cohen and Greig de Peuter. 2013. “The Politics of Precarity: Can the Urban Worker Strategy Address Precarious Employment For All?” Briarpatch, November-December, 6-9.
- Nicole S. Cohen. 2013. “Commodifying Free Labor Online: Social Media, Audiences, and Advertising.” In The Routledge Companion to Advertising and Promotional Culture. Emily West and Matthew McAllister, eds., 177-191. New York: Routledge.
- Greig de Peuter, Nicole Cohen and Enda Brophy. 2012. “Interns of the Creative Industries, Unite. You Have Nothing to Lose—Literally.” Briarpatch, November/December, 8-12.
- Nicole S. Cohen. 2012. “Cultural Work as a Site of Struggle: Freelancers and Exploitation.” tripleC: Cognition, Communication, Co-operation 10(2): 141-155.
- Nicole S. Cohen. 2012. “From Alienation to Autonomy: The Labour of Alternative Media.” In Alternative Media in Canada, edited by Kirsten Kozolanka, Patricia Mazepa, and David Skinner, 207-225. University of British Columbia Press.
- Nicole S. Cohen. 2011. “Negotiating Writers’ Rights: Freelance Cultural Labour and the Challenge of Organizing.” Just Labour: A Canadian Journal of Work and Society 17 & 18: 119–138.
- Nicole S. Cohen. 2008. “The Valorization of Surveillance: Towards a Political Economy of Facebook.” Democratic Communiqué 22(1): 5–22.
- Nicole S. Cohen and Leslie Shade. 2008. “Gendering Facebook: Privacy and Commodification.” Feminist Media Studies 8(2): 208–212.
Honours & Awards

2017 Gertrude J. Robinson Book Prize, Canadian Communication Association, for Writers’ Rights: Freelance Journalism in a Digital Age (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016)

Communication Workers of America/Canadian Association of Journalists Award for Labour Reporting, 2012

Nicole Cohen

Nicole Cohen

Research

Selected Publications

Honours & Awards