Alberto Cossu (Prof)

Professor Alberto Cossu is a sociologist and media scholar whose research focuses on art & creative work; collaborative and digital economies; with a focus on the organisational processes and new forms of value creation that he studies combining qualitative and digital methods. He is also active on policymaking and consulting for both public and private sector: he consulted for EU grants, he collaborates regularly with Fondazione Feltrinelli and took part in Facebook Policy Meetings. He currently works as Assistant Professor in Media & Communication within the School of Media, Communication and Sociology at the University of Leicester where he is Programme Director for the MA in Digital Media & Society and leads the Research Cluster on Digital Media. His current funded research agenda explores the societal impact of crypto-finance and the transformations of collaborative work in the post-pandemic context. He is Co-PI for the H2020 Project Digigen for the work package on ICTs and the transformation of civic participation.

Professor Cossu was Lecturer in New Media & Digital Culture within the Dept of Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and previously a Research Fellow at the Department of Social & Political Sciences, University of Milan where he also obtained his PhD in Sociology (Sept. 2015). During his PhD he conducted research on the mobilisation of knowledge and art workers in Italy; within the EU project P2PValue he worked as part of an international team led by Prof A Arvidsson on peer-to-peer models of organisation and production in Italy and France; on digital economy and co-working spaces in Italy and Thailand.

He has published on peer-reviewed journals as: Social Media + Society, European Journal of Cultural Studies, International Journal of Cultural Studies, Sociologia del Lavoro, Studi Culturali, City Culture & Society. His first monograph, Autonomous Art Institutions – Artists Disruputing the Creative City, is due to appear in early 2022 for Rowman & Littefleld International. He acts as reviewer for several journals, including: Theory, Culture & Society, Sociological Review, Convergence, New Media & Society, Marketing Theory, Convergence, Cultural Trends, Sociologica.