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Nathaniel Tkacz

Staff details

Nathaniel Tkacz

Position

Associate Co-Head of the Department

Department

Media, Communications and Cultural Studies

Email

n.tkacz (@gold.ac.uk)

Nate's research focuses on the culture and politics of digital media, with a focus on apps, data and interfaces.

Nate Tkacz is a Professor of Digital Media and Culture. His broad interest is in understanding how digital technologies produce or (re)shape culture and society. He has approached this interest in a number of ways, for example, through a study of how digital networks change the conditions of knowledge production (through studies of Wikipedia or dashboard interfaces), or through studies of how apps transform our relationship to money and finance (banking apps), or governance and health (covid apps). His research aims to combine critical and technical understandings of media with creative methodological approaches.

Academic qualifications

  • PhD in Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne. 2012

Teaching and supervision

Supervision: I am able to supervise students in digital media and culture, including studies of platforms, social media, apps, data, AI, software, interfaces, digital commons, social media alternatives, digital media and everyday life and digital economy/finance.

Module Leader: MC71210A: Digital Culture: Critical Theory

Featured publications

Publications and research outputs

Article

de Albuquerque, João Porto; Anderson, Liana; Calvillo, Nerea; Cattino, Massimo; Clarke, Andrew; Cunha, Maria Alexandra; Garde-Hansen, Joanne; Klonner, Carolin; Lima-Silva, Fernanda; Marchezini, Victor; da Mata Martins, Mario Henrique; Grajales, Diego Pajarito; Pitidis, Vangelis; Rizwan, Mohammed; Tkacz, Nathaniel and Trajber, Rachel. 2023. Dialogic data innovations for sustainability transformations and flood resilience : the case for waterproofing data. Global Environmental Change, 82, 102730. ISSN 0959-3780

Dieter, Michael; Helmond, Anne; Tkacz, Nathaniel; van der Vlist, Fernando and Weltevrede, Esther. 2021. Pandemic platform governance: mapping the global ecosystem of COVID-19 response apps. Internet Policy Review: journal on internet regulation, 10(3), ISSN 2197-6775

Tkacz, Nathaniel; da Mata Martins, Mário Henrique; de Albuquerque, João Porto; Horita, Flávio and Neto, Giovanni Dolif. 2021. Data diaries: a situated approach to the study of data. Big Data & Society, 8(1), pp. 1-16. ISSN 2053-9517

Book

Tkacz, Nathaniel. 2022. Being with Data: The Dashboarding of Everyday Life. Cambridge: Polity Press. ISBN 9781509545315

Tkacz, Nathaniel. 2014. Wikipedia and the politics of openness. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226192277

Book Section

Velasco, Pablo and Tkacz, Nathaniel. 2020. Blockchain, or, peer production without guarantees. In: Mathieu O'Neil; Christian Pentzold and Sophie Toupin, eds. The Handbook of Peer Production. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 238-253. ISBN 9781119537106

Tkacz, Nathaniel and Velasco, Pablo R.. 2018. Experience money. In: Inte Gloerich; Geert Lovink and Patricia de Vries, eds. MoneyLab Reader 2: Overcoming the Hype. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, pp. 31-42. ISBN 9789492302199

Enyedy, Edgar and Tkacz, Nathaniel. 2011. ‘Good luck with your wikiPAIDia’: reflections on the 2002 fork of the Spanish Wikipedia. An interview with Edgar Enyedy and Nathaniel Tkacz. In: Geert Lovink and Nathaniel Tkacz, eds. Critical point of view: a Wikipedia reader. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, pp. 110-118. ISBN 9789078146131

Edited Book

Cubitt, Sean; Palmer, Daniel and Tkacz, Nathaniel, eds. 2015. Digital Light. Ann Arbor: Open Humanities Press/fibreculture. ISBN 978-1-78542-000-9

Lovink, Geert and Tkacz, Nathaniel, eds. 2011. Critical point of view: a Wikipedia reader. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures. ISBN 9789078146131

Research projects

2022-2023: Researching Platform Migration? Twitter decline and the rise of Mastodon
Pilot study of users who left Twitter (X) and moved to Mastodon

2022-2023: Wikipedia and the nation’s story: Towards equity in knowledge production
A study of Australian national history on Wikipedia

2020-2020: COVID-19 App Store and Data Flow Ecologies
A global study of Covid Apps

2018-2022: Waterproofing Data
A large ESRC-funded (Belmon Forum) international study of the production and circulation of flood-related data.

2014-2016: Interrogating the Dashboard: Data, Indicators and Decision-making
A ESRC-funded study of information dashboard across numerous organisational and personal settings.

2012: MoneyLab
A research network for experimental digital economies