Nicole S. Cohen earned her PhD in the Graduate Program in Communication and Culture at York University. Beginning July 1, 2013, she will be an assistant professor at the Institute of Communication, Culture and Information Technology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Nicole researches in the area of political economy of communication, particularly labour and organizing in the media and cultural industries, the political economy of social media, alternative media, and journalism. Her dissertation, Negotiating Precarious Cultural Work: Freelance Writers and Collective Organization in Media Industries, examines the labour conditions and collective organizing efforts of freelance journalists. She has taught in the Journalism Department at Laurier Brantford and is a research assistant with the Digital Labour group at the University of Western Ontario. Nicole is currently collaborating with Greig de Peuter and Enda Brophy on a SSHRC-funded project titled Flexible Workforces Respond to the Creative Economy: The Recomposition of Labour Politics in an Age of Precarity. Her academic research has been published in tripleC, Feminist Media Studies, Just Labour, Democratic Communiqué, and the Canadian Journal of Communication.
In 2010, Nicole co-organized a national conference called Making Media Public, which brought together media makers, union members, and academics to discuss the challenges and possibilities for transforming media in Canada. She was on the organizing committee for the conference Will Work For Exposure: Cultural Work in Precarious Times, held October 19, 2012 at Ryerson University.
Nicole is the co-founder and former co-editor of Shameless, an independent feminist magazine for teens that has been publishing since 2004. She remains active in the project and currently serves as a director of the board. As a journalist, Nicole has written for The Toronto Star, Eye Weekly, This Magazine, Briarpatch, Herizons, Broken Pencil, Canadian Dimension, NOW Magazine, and rabble.ca. In 2013, her co-authored article with Greig de Peuter and Enda Brophy for Briarpatch magazine—”Iterns Unite! You Have Nothing To Lose (Literally)”—won the CWA Canda/CAJ Award For Labour Reporting.
