Rate My Professor Nathaniel Tkacz

Nathaniel Tkacz is Professor of Digital Media and Culture in the School of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he serves as Associate Co-Head of the Department. He earned his PhD in Culture and Communication from the University of Melbourne. Tkacz's research centers on the culture and politics of digital media, with a particular focus on apps, data, and interfaces. He investigates how digital technologies produce or reshape culture and society, contributing to fields such as platform studies, app studies, and digital culture. His scholarly work explores themes like data dashboards in everyday life, the politics of openness in platforms like Wikipedia, social media fragmentation and migration following changes at Twitter, and the abstractions of digital money through services like Apple Pay.

Tkacz has published two major monographs: Being with Data: The Dashboarding of Everyday Life (Polity, 2022), which examines how people encounter data through interfaces like dashboards, and Wikipedia and the Politics of Openness (University of Chicago Press, 2015), analyzing the theory and practice of openness in digital collaboration. He edited MoneyLab Reader: An Intervention in Digital Economy (Networkcultures.org, 2015) and co-edited Critical Point of View: A Wikipedia Reader (Institute of Network Cultures, 2011) with Geert Lovink. Recent publications include 'Fragmentation, Platform Polities and Protective Sociality' (Social Media + Society, 2025, with Robert Gehl), 'Eventful Migration: Rethinking Social Media Migration with Help from Elon Musk's Sink' (New Media & Society, 2025, with co-authors), and 'Money's New Abstractions: Apple Pay and the Economy of Anticipation' (Popular Communication, 2019). Tkacz organizes symposia such as Statecraft, Sovereignty and Digital Government and delivers lectures on algorithmically enabled digital advertising and news platforms. His contributions influence discussions on digital government, platform politics, and data cultures.