Mirko Tobias Schäfer / Assistant Professor
University of Utrecht Department for Media and Culture Studies
Mirko Tobias Schäfer / Assistant Professor
University of Utrecht Department for Media and Culture Studies
Mirko Tobias Schäfer is Associate Professor at Utrecht University's research area Governing the Digital Society and the Department for Information & Computing Sciences. He is co-founder and Faculty of Science Lead of the Utrecht Data School. Mirko is also a visiting professor at the Helsinki Institute for Social Sciences & Humanities (University of Helsinki).
Mirko studied theater, film and media studies, and communication studies at Vienna University (A) and digital culture at Utrecht University (NL). He obtained a magister (MA) in theater, film and media studies from the University of Vienna in 2002, and a Ph.D. from Utrecht University in 2008.
Mirko's research interest revolves around the socio-political impact of (media) technology. With the Utrecht Data School and the Datafied Society research platform, he investigates the impact of data practices and algorithms on public management, public media and public space.
His publications cover user participation, datafication, and communication in social media. He is co-editor and co-author of the volume Digital Material. Tracing New Media in Everyday Life and Technology (Amsterdam University Press, 2009). He is author of the book Bastard Culture! How User Participation Transforms Cultural Production (Amsterdam University Press 2011). Recently he edited (together with Karin van Es) the volume The Datafied Society. Studying Culture through Data (Amsterdam University Press 2017).
In 2016, Mirko was a Mercator Research Fellow at the NRW School of Governance at University of Duisburg-Essen. In 2014 and 2015 he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Humanities at Utrecht University. In 2012 and 2013, Mirko was appointed research fellow at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, where he was affiliated with the Artistic Technology Research Lab. Since 2018, he is one of four programme coordinators of Utrecht University's research area Governing the Digital Society.
Mirko is a member of the supervisory board of the Boekman Foundation, an institute for arts, culture and related policy based in Amsterdam.
Mirko speaks and advises on issues of datafication, social media, and participatory culture. Mirko is a frequent speaker at workshops and practitioners' conferences in the fields of data practices in public management, and media industries. For more information or for booking Mirko as a speaker, please contact Daan van der Weijden at info@dataschool.nl.
Dr. Mirko Tobias Schäfer
Utrecht Data School
Utrecht University
Drift 13
NL- 3512 BR Utrecht
Mail: m [DOT] t [DOT] schaefer [AT] uu.nl
Twitter: @mirkoschaefer
[Image: Studio Oostrom]