Tony D. Sampson
"The right wing has powerful contagious moods that help spread their ideas."
Tony D. Sampson is an academic author whose research connects digital culture, media theory, and political philosophy. He is a Reader in Digital Communication at the University of Essex Business School and co-founder of the Cultural Engine Research Group. Author of several books including Virality, A Sleepwalker’s Guide to Social Media, and The Assemblage Brain, his work examines how networked media environments shape behaviour, attention, and political life.
He is due to publish a new book early in spring 2027 with the University of Minnesota Press titled Birth, School, Work, Death: UX and the Struggle Against Life-Cycle Optimization. The project extends his analysis of digital influence by examining how the logic of user experience design increasingly structures institutions and everyday practices across the life course.
"Impressive and ambitious" — Brian Rotman