Nikki Usher, Ph.D.
Welcome! I study the intersection of new technology, politics, and the news media, with a particular focus on how power, inequality, and economics impact our news and information environment.
Key areas of interest include:
Key areas of interest include:
- digital platforms as civic communication infrastructures
- misinformation, hyper-partisanship, and populism in local contexts
- elite news media, power, and the political economy of news production
- media and technology policy & the post-newspaper democracy
I'm the author of three books, News for the Rich, White, and Blue: How Place and Power Distort American Journalism; Making News at the New York Times, and Interactive Journalism: Hackers, Data, and Code. I am an associate professor at the University of San Diego in the Communication Studies department and a professor on the graduate faculty at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as well as a senior fellow at the Open Markets Institute's Center for Journalism and Liberty.
