Dr Tony Sampson
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Email
tsamps@essex.ac.uk -
Location
EBS.3.29, Colchester Campus
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Academic support hours
For arranging an in-person or Zoom meeting, please contact me through my Essex email.
Profile
Biography
DR TONY D. SAMPSON IS A READER IN DIGITAL COMMUNICATION IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX’S BUSINESS SCHOOL (EBS). Tony joined the University in Jan 2023 INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH APPROACH/INFORMED TEACHING This text includes links that may need to be copied into browser Tony's interdisciplinary approach to research spans two interconnected strands concerned with lived and felt experiences in both (a) digital and experiential marketing/labour/economy, and (b), impactful community engagement with culture, heritage and “natural” environments. These interwoven interests directly inform his teaching in EBS (Management and Marketing). Across both research strands, Tony examines how the tangible and intangible environments people inhabit evoke, shape, or suppress experience. His work investigates affective relations and their role in shaping how experiences are produced, understood, and transformed. This contributes to critical debates surrounding power, inclusion, and marginalisation in both virtual and physical contexts. 1. DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS (MARKETING & MANAGEMENT) PUBLICATIONS AND ACADEMIC PROFILE In the digital marketing and management context, Tony has published widely on digital communication, social media marketing, labour, virality, neuroculture, and user experience (UX). His publications include numerous monographs, edited volumes, and journal articles, such as: • The Spam Book, co-edited with Jussi Parikka (Hampton Press, 2009) in REF 2014 • Virality: Contagion Theory in the Age of Networks (University of Minnesota Press, 2012) in REF 2014 • The Assemblage Brain: Sense Making in Neuroculture (University of Minnesota Press, 2017) REF 2021 • Affect and Social Media, co-edited with Darren Ellis & Stephen Maddison (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018) REF 2021 • A Sleepwalker’s Guide to Social Media (Polity, 2020) REF 2021 His forthcoming book, The Struggle for [USER] Experience: Birth, School, Work, and Death (University of Minnesota Press, 2026) is now in production. The text examines the pervasiveness of experiential industries and design thinking across contemporary lifecycles. It focuses primarily on the impact of consumer frameworks on "cradle-to-grave" public services (such as health and education) and on issues of life/work balance affecting digital labour. Tony's digital communication research has been highlighted internationally through keynote addresses and invited talks, and his work has been translated into several languages, including French, Spanish, Italian, German, Polish, Hungarian, Korean, and Chinese. He serves on the editorial board of the US-based affect philosophy journal Capacious. PUBLIC PROFILE Tony has made numerous media appearances, including recent commentary on social media business models for the BBC TV News Channel, guest debater on BBC Radio 4's Moral Maze, and digital marketing expert advice for BBC Radio 4's consumer programme You and Yours. His work has featured extensively in international print media (Colombian newspaper El Espectador, Czech media (Ceska Televize), Dazed magazine (UK), and Bloomberg (US), as well as appearing in videos on digital media platforms like US-based Mashable. Current media contributions include CCN Business, Newsweek, Washington Post, Business Insider, and the Byline Times. Listen to Tony on the BBC iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002n7yt Coverage on the UoE Blog: https://www.essex.ac.uk/blog/posts/2025/12/09/ban-on-under-16s-accessing-social-media-in-australia Archive of keynotes, invited talks etc: https://viralcontagion.blog/viral-events/ Examples of recent and forthcoming invited talks Make Disagreement Great Again - Panel debate at Tempelriddersalen, Copenhagen https://nordmedianetwork.org/latest/upcoming-conferences/make-disagreement-great-again/ 15th Jan 2026: HOUSE IS IN SESSION: HOW CAN WE WORK TOGETHER WHEN WE CAN’T SEE EYE TO EYE? Serpentine North Gallery https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/house-is-in-session/ 31st Jan 2026: I, Internet: Making Art in the Machine - https://verdur.in/event/i-internet/ Feb 12th: Introducing Beth Chatto’s Meanwhile Garden: The Urban Wild & Other Disturbances An Evening of Performance, Conversation & Ecology, at the Commons Café (Minories Gallery, Colchester) - https://culturalengine.org.uk/imaginarium-returns/ 4th March: Introducing a screening and discussion with artist Simon Poulter about his remarkable film, We Are Making a Film About Mark Fisher at the London School of Economics 2. CIVIC ENGAGEMENT AND IMPACT Tony's academic work is committed to the principle of civic engagement and the role of the university as an “anchor institution” in the local communities and neighbourhoods it serves. In research on engagement in culture, heritage and the “natural” environments, Tony draws on original underpinning research outputs, including “emotional geography” and “mezzo-level” methods and concepts, to support community engagement, collaboration, and activism. He is co-founder of the Cultural Engine Research Group (CERG), based in Essex, East Anglia, and East London. CERG works across disciplines and sectors, directly engaging, consulting and co-creating solutions with communities, local authorities, charities, not-for-profit organisations, and students on publicly funded projects. In this capacity, Tony co-organises public engagement initiatives such as Club Critical Theory, The Silvertown Sessions, and, more recently, the Wild Essex Imaginarium at EBS. Wild Essex Imagimarioum at EBS Sept 27th 2025: https://culturalengine.org.uk/ongoing-coverage-of-the-first-wild-essex-imaginarium-27th-sept-2025-ebs-uoe/ See CERG’s research news blog for full coverage: https://culturalengine.org.uk/news-blog/ Tony’s impactful work plays an influential role in shaping local and national government policy. He is a member of Key Cities Innovation Network (https://keycities.uk/) and the Key Cities APPG (https://keycities.uk/appg/)- a cross-party forum of Parliamentarians, City Leaders and Stakeholders engaged in developing policy and engaging with Government on issues affecting liveability and sustainable growth in our key cities. FUNDED PROJECTS AT ESSEX Public Funded (NLHF) "Emotional Geography" & Community Engagement (2022/23) • Bringing in Essex as the partner university in a National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF) project, Tony funded pilot emotional geography co-creation workshops and student internships supporting a new museum in Tendring (https://www.essex.ac.uk/news/2024/05/10/essex-students-have-unique-opportunity-to-shape-museum-celebrating-local-seaside-towns) Supporting Grants (2025–2026) • Engagement and Impact Fund 2025–2026, Key Cities Innovation Network – £2,000 (approved) Supporting and enabling impactful research that shapes decision-making from local and regional authorities to debates at national parliament level. (https://www.essex.ac.uk/news/2025/05/18/communities-can-be-empowered-by-understanding-emotional-geography) • Innovation Fund (2026): Environmental Strategy CIC with Local District Authority – £14,704.63 - plus 20k from local authority partner (approved). This project funds academic and project management time, travel, and delivery support to embed creative, community-led environmental practice across a district in Essex. It will co-produce a major festival strand, community engagement frameworks, biodiversity action planning, and policy-facing outputs that connect local action to regional and national environmental strategy. Submitted Nature Towns and Cities Communities Programme – Co-design Process Application to the National Trust (February 2026). In Development (2026) Clacton Cultural Community Centre – Lottery Fund Application PGR SUPERVISION Tony has examined, supervised and completed numerous PGR students. He currently welcomes MPhil/PhD applicants interested in: Digital Contexts • Digital economy • Critical perspectives on digital design labour and practices • Digital design industry dynamics • UX and HCI theory and practice • Emerging technologies • Digital aesthetics, perception, and affect theory • Cognitive, neuro, affective, and emotional labour Community, Mezzo-level, and Emotional Geographies • Community–arts–nature-based projects • Social, cultural, and critical theory engaged with emotional geography, mezzo-level concepts, pride-in-place, levelling up, and community wealth-building RESEARCH CENTRES In additin to his work with CERG, Tony is a member of two research centres at Essex - the Centre for Commons Organising, Values Equalities and Resilience (COVER) based in EBS, and the Centre for Coastal Communities (CCC) where he is also on the advisory board.
Qualifications
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PhD Sociology University of Essex, (2008)
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Masters Multimedia and Cultural Production University of East London, (2002)
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BSc Multimedia Technology University of Greenwich, (1998)
Research and professional activities
Research interests
User Experience Design (UX)
Understanding affect of UX on design and marketing labour and wider impact on public spheres (health, education etc.)
Community Development & Emotional Geographies
Researching, engaging, and co-creating (coastal) community development through understanding emotional and affective relationships to place, heritage, arts and culture.
Digital labour
Affective labour
Exploring affective labour as an addition/alternative to physical and cogntive labour theory in digital workplaces
Contagion (virality) theory & network culture
My interest in contagion (virality) theory & network culture is based on research and publication of my book: Sampson, T.D., 2012. Virality: Contagion theory in the age of networks. U of Minnesota Press.
Neurocultures
My interest in Neuroculture is based on research and publication of my book: Sampson, T.D., 2016. The assemblage brain: Sense making in neuroculture. U of Minnesota Press.
Current research
The Struggle for [USER] Experience - Monograph in Production
Monograph Status: In production. Due to be published in 2026 Confirmation from the Senior Acquisitions Editor at University of Minnesota Press on 09 January 2026 22:24 After two rounds of peer review in late 2024 at the proposal stage, approved for an advance contract, and then the penultimate complete draft in late 2025 the revised manuscript will be formally entering production and the copyediting queue in February 2026.
Embedding Essex Research in National Policy Frameworks: Co-design and Execution of (KCIN) APPG’s Agenda
Principal Investigator
The project was funded from the University’s internal Engagement and Impact Fund programme. The programme is a strategic University of Essex initiative to increase and speed up the beneficial social, economic, policy, and environmental impacts of our research at home and abroad.
More information about this project
Sustainable Uttlesford Community Project
Project Lead - Innovation Fund (£14,704.63 and £20,000 from UDC Support the development of the Uttlesford Big Green Festival (6th to 14th June 2026), working with UDC, the new CIC and other partners to embed the principles of the Wild Essex Imaginarium through co-production with creatives, researchers and communities - exploring concepts of creativity as a vehicle for driving and inspiring participation in environmental and nature projects. This will help UDC and other partners better understand how creative programmes and partnerships can support the short and longer-term aims of SU. Deliverables: Co-produced festival strand; Imaginarium-aligned creative programming; documented learning for SU/UDC post LGR. Support for PR/Marketing plans, promotional materials · · Strategize approach to, and co-deliver, SU community engagement work which is essential in delivering, e.g., LNRS at neighbourhood/community level. This work would be underpinned by Sampson et al.’s ‘emotional geographies’ research on leveraging community interest in environmental participation to empower community voices and engage people in environmental action. This would include delivering targeted workshops to help inform the SU strategy around public/community engagement. Deliverables: Community engagement framework; SU-aligned workshops; workshop outputs feeding into SU strategy. · Work with the UDC/CIC project lead and the Cultural Engine to help shape the organisational structure of SU and stakeholder partnerships/networks as a mezzo-level organisation working between the hyper-local and the strategic to deliver, for example, the LNRS at a local level (i.e., local authorities). With SU and Cultural Engine, Tony would develop a “tool kit” (or mezzo-level model) through partnerships/networks. This could take the form of a co-authored white paper/strategy report, as well as an academic/policy piece for the Key Cities Network publication (due to be launched in Parliament in May) with impactful recommendations shaping regional and national approaches to environmental policy. · Deliverables: Mezzo-level “tool kit” for SU and UDC; co-authored white paper/strategy report; policy piece for Key Cities publication. · Together with the Cultural Engine, the above report would further advise on funding strategies post-LGR. Deliverables: Funding strategy advice; g post-LGR recommendations. · Supporting SU’s Biodiversity Action Planning. Help SU, UDC and local groups to develop a Biodiversity Action Plan, identifying the opportunities informed by local priorities and those set out in the LNRS. Help to develop a robust monitoring system for biodiversity/nature recovery at a local level informed by existing ‘toolkits’ and evaluative approaches. Support the roll out of field work across the District to support the actions, offering advice on strategy, health/safety, and procurement/use of technical kit. Deliverables: Workshops with local groups on fieldwork, support for SU on developing a Biodiversity Action Plan based on evidence, and contribution to Festival to reflect work on developing the Biodiversity Action Plan for SU. · Where opportunities arise – oversee some UoE student fieldwork trips to support specific priority projects across the Uttlesford District. Deliverables: Fieldwork trips with UoE students that support specific local projects that would benefit from additional on the ground capacity.
Imaginarium
Three Critical Concepts for the Wild Essex Imaginarium
Tony Sampson (University of Essex) framed the symposium around three critical concepts, which are, he contended, not fixed frameworks, but provocations intended to help orient the conversations of the Wild Essex Imaginarium. These are not a conceptual toolkit, yet. They are hackable concepts.
Emotional Geography: Leveraging Feelings About Place. Drawing on previous CERG research, Tony emphasised that people are often enchanted by their natural environments. It is not abstract policies alone that reshape place, people or culture, but the affective attachments people develop to the places where they live. Referring to what Raymond Williams described as structures of feeling, he suggested that feelings can function like a river. These analogous flows of feeling produce meandering experiences that continually reshape culture.
Mezzo Level Response to Local Government Devolution. Tony then turned to the interplay between macro- and micro-level dynamics, situating the Imaginarium at the mezzo level – not so much a middle, but a point of assemblage. He noted the anticipated post-devolution gap between macro politics and micro-level communities. But instead of focusing on the negatives, we need to see this as an opportunity. The potential emergence of new ecosystems of collaboration that could bring together parish councils, anchor institutions (such as universities), artists and galleries (like the Minories), environmental organisations (EWT), activists, local businesses (Beth Chatto Gardens, Red Lion Books, Colchester’s co-operative traditions), and cultural CICs. Together, these mezzo-level actors need to form new ways of engaging with local governance and policy.
Announcing The New Faculty of the Imagination — The Imaginarium. Finally, given that the climate debate increasingly coincides with political struggles for the control of perception, Tony proposed the idea of a new faculty of the imagination. The Imaginarium, he argued, is a creative space for aesthetic experimentation, where new enchantments can emerge. Along these lines, creative practices may challenge and transform perceptions of nature and policy, and encourage community engagement (emotional, affective, and cognitive) and open alternative creative modes of communicating and helping to realise policy objectives.
Throughout the symposium, Tom Cameron, from the University of Essex’s School of Life Sciences, offered a series of challenges, provocations, and practical actions. He also highlighted several key points of convergence between the arts and sciences. Presciently, Tom urged the Wild Essex Imaginarium to articulate more clearly what it means by “wild.” Across the event, the notion of wildness appeared in multiple and sometimes conflicting forms. Participants heard about people living with managed wild rurality (for instance, Steve Waters on farming) and about the urban wild (David Gates on Beth Chatto’s Meanwhile Garden), both of which invite comparison with nonhuman and ecological understandings of what it means to be wild.
Following Lora Aziz’s act of welcoming nature (literally bringing the outside in from Wivenhoe Park to the human space of the EBS Auditorium), Tom reflected on human culture’s persistent tendency to tame and “tidy up” the wild, in contrast to the inherent messiness and vitality of nature itself. He also echoed Rich Yates’s (EWT) important reminder that conservation is not, and has never been, only a science.
More information about this project
Emotional Geography and Community Development/Empowerment
This research project develops an applied framework for community development that supports local authorities and place-based organisations in addressing regional inequalities through emotionally informed and policy-relevant interventions. Drawing on emotional geography and mezzolevel policy analysis, the project translates critical research insights into practical strategies that enhance community empowerment, sustainable development, and locally grounded decision-making. It directly responds to the limitations of previous Levelling Up initiatives by retaining their most effective place-based principles while addressing structural and conceptual shortcomings that have constrained meaningful local impact.
The project targets a well-documented impact gap between macrolevel policy design and hyperlocal community needs. Local authorities are central beneficiaries of the research, yet they operate under restrictive national funding regimes characterised by competitive bidding, short-termism, and limited capacity for deep community engagement. Through sustained collaboration with local government, cultural organisations, and community partners, the project generates actionable knowledge that supports more nuanced understandings of local sentiment, attachment, and lived experience, strengthening the evidence base available to policy and practice.
Impact is generated through three interconnected knowledge exchange pathways led by the Cultural Engine Research Group (CERG). First, the project extends CERG’s critical analysis of pride-in-place discourses within national and local policy, translating this critique into tools that help practitioners move beyond symbolic or instrumentalised accounts of place. Second, insights from publicly engaged research and pilot workshops on emotional engagements with heritage along the North Essex coast are mobilised as transferable models for community consultation, co-design, and participatory policy development. Third, the project embeds over ten years of practice-based collaboration with local authorities in Essex and East London, ensuring that research outputs are informed by, and directly usable within, real-world governance and delivery contexts.
The project delivers impact through two primary outputs. The first is the development of an applied research toolkit that enables local authorities and partner organisations to use heritage, arts, and cultural engagement as mechanisms for fostering community agency, cohesion, and place-based value creation. The second output advances an enhanced mezzolevel policy framework that supports better alignment between national objectives and local implementation, providing decision-makers with scalable strategies for translating affective and experiential data into policy design and evaluation.
Collectively, the project contributes to demonstrable benefits for local government, cultural and third-sector organisations, and communities by improving the quality of engagement, supporting more inclusive forms of place-making, and informing policy approaches that are socially sustainable and locally accountable. These outcomes position the research to deliver clear, evidenced impact beyond academia, aligned with REF and KE priorities around civic engagement, policy influence, and societal benefit.
More information about this project
Conferences and presentations
Introducing a screening and discussion with artist Simon Poulter
Invited presentation, Screening of film We Are Making a Film About Mark Fisher, London School of Economics, London, 4/3/2026
Beth Chatto’s Meanwhile Garden: The Urban Wild & Other Disturbances
https://culturalengine.org.uk/imaginarium-returns/, Common Cafe at the Minories, Colchester, Essex, 12/2/2026
Talk on my publications on digital subjectivity
Invited presentation, I, Internet Making Art in the Machine at Verdurin Project Space - https://verdur.in/event/i-internet/, Verdurin, London, 31/1/2026
HOUSE IS IN SESSION HOW CAN WE WORK TOGETHER WHEN WE CAN’T SEE EYE TO EYE?
Invited presentation, HOUSE IS IN SESSION HOW CAN WE WORK TOGETHER WHEN WE CAN’T SEE EYE TO EYE? https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/house-is-in-session, Serpentine North Gallery, London, 15/1/2026
The Struggle for the [User] Experience of Disappointment
Invited presentation, Brain Rot, AI Slop, and the Enshittification of the Internet: A Media and Cultural Studies Symposium, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 5/12/2025
A Mezzo-Level Response: Building Creative Ecosystems Between Macro Devolution and Micro Communities in Coastal Towns and Surrounding Cities
Invited presentation, i-PLACE 25 - Key Cities Innovation Network: Roundtable at The Lowry with city leaders, researchers, industry, and community and Conference on national policy and R&I strategy and local innovation deep-dives from across the network, 26/11/2025
A Sleepwalker's Guide to Social Media
Invited presentation, Invited book talk/Q&A to University of Toronto Communication, Culture, Information and Technology Graduates, 24/10/2025
Introduction to (and Host) Symposium: Three Critical Concepts
Wild Essex Imaginarium, University of Essex, 27/9/2025
Rethinking the User eXperience Paradigm
Invited presentation, HCID Conference 2025 – Paradigm Shift, City St George’s, University of London., 24/6/2025
From Economic to Emotional Geography: Understanding the Importance of the Mezzolevel in Community Development.
Invited presentation, KEY CITIES INNOVATION NETWORK CONFERENCE 2024 Culture, Place and Development, University of Bradford, 27/11/2024
The Struggle for [User] Experience - Funeral UX
Invited presentation, Decision after the Algorithmic Turn: Politics, ethics, ontology, 24/9/2024
The Struggle for [User] Experience: Overview and Action
Invited presentation, HCID2024 Conference - Design for All, City, University of London, 18/9/2024
From Economic to Emotional Geography: Understanding the Importance of the Mezzo-Level in Community Development
Royal Geographic Society 2024, London, London, United Kingdom, 29/8/2024
Return to Virality: Contagion Theory in the Age of Social Media
Keynote presentation, 11th European Conference on Social Media, The European Conference on Social Media at University of Brighton, UK, 30/5/2024
The Struggle for {User] Experience: Work - Where Flow can Thrive
Invited presentation, "'The ‘Data Pharmacy’: A Workshop on Wellness Media, Smart Drugs, and Other Therapeutic Transmissions", Goldsmiths, 26/3/2024
“Feeling Pride in Place Through Local Heritage Projects”
RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, Royal Geographic Society, London, 1/9/2023
Teaching and supervision
Current teaching responsibilities
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Digital Marketing and Social Media (BE518)
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Critical Marketing Perspectives (BE530)
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Consumer Behaviour (BE555)
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Independent Study Project: Management/Marketing (BE938)
Current supervision
Publications
Journal articles (30)
Sampson, A., (2026). The Struggle for the [User] Experience of Disappointment: AI Rot, Slop and Enshitification. European Journal of Cultural Studies
Sampson, A., Markelj, J. and Lengua, D., (2026). On Modes of (Over)Stimulation: Article and introduction to special issue of Media Theory "Stimulating Media: Cognitive and Sensory Approaches". Media Theory
Sampson, A., (2025). Where Positive Flow Can Thrive: A Critical Approach to User Experience and Control in the Digital Workspace. Computational Culture. 10 (10)
Sampson, A. and Markelj, J., (2023). The Perilous Potential of the Blur: Digital Cultures Within Zones of Indistinction. The Journal of Media Art Study and Theory. 4, 1-27
Sampson, A., (2023). The UX University: Emotionally Situating Student Experience in a Transition between Protest and Post-Protest Marketization. Persona Studies. 9 (1), 17-35
Sampson, TD., (2022). Robert J. Shiller, Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events. American Literary History. 34 (2), 819-822
Sampson, TD. and Parikka, J., (2021). The Operational Loops of a Pandemic. Cultural Politics. 17 (1), 55-68
Sampson, TD., (2020). Affect, Cognition and the Neurosciences. Athenea Digital. Revista de pensamiento e investigación social. 20 (2)
Sampson, TD., (2020). A sleepwalker’s guide to the collective nonconscious. Parallax. 26 (1), 34-47
Sampson, A. and Markelj, J., (2020). Contagions, Sleepwalkers, and the Nonconscious of Social Media: An Interview with Tony D. Sampson. The Journal of Media Art Study and Theory. 1 (2), 23-45
Sampson, A., (2020). Spatiotemporal Zones of Neosomnambulism. Media Theory. 4 (2)
Sampson, A. and Parikka, J., (2020). Les Logiques Nouvelles des Médias Viraux. Analysis, Opinion, Critique (AOC) Journal.
Sampson, TD., (2019). Transitions in human–computer interaction: from data embodiment to experience capitalism. AI & SOCIETY. 34 (4), 835-845
Sampson, TD., (2019). Sergio Tonkonoff, From Tarde to Deleuze and Foucault: The Infinitesimal Revolution. International Sociology. 34 (5), 574-576
Sampson, A. and Hayles, NK., (2018). Unthought Meets the Assemblage Brain: A Dialogue between N. Katherine Hayles and Tony D. Sampson.. Capacious
Sampson, TD., (2017). Cosmic Topologies of Imitation: From the Horror of Digital Autotoxicus to the Auto-Toxicity of the Social. Parallax. 23 (1), 61-76
Sampson, A., (2016). Various Joyful Encounters with the Dystopias of Affective Capitalism. Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization
Sampson, A., (2016). Fertőzéselmélet a mikrobákon túl. Apertura. Autumn(1)
Sampson, A., (2016). An Interview with Tony D Sampson. North American Notes Online (NANO)
Sampson, T., (2015). Booknote. New Formations. 84 (84), 265-266
Sampson, A., (2015). Getting the [Care] Deficit Down: A review of Michael Schillmeier’s Eventful Bodies: The Cosmopolitics of Illness. New Formations. 84 (5)
Sampson, TD., (2014). Comment on Peckham: contagion-epidemiological models and financial crises. Journal of Public Health. 36 (1), 20-21
Sampson, A., (2013). Review of Immaterial Bodies: Affect, Embodiment, Mediation by Lisa Blackman. New Formations. 79 (79)
Sampson, TD., (2012). Tarde's phantom takes a deadly line of flight – from Obama Girl to the assassination of Bin Laden. Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory. 13 (3), 354-366
Sampson, A., (2011). Contagion Theory Beyond the Microbe. Journal of Theory, Technology and Culture (CTheory)
LUGO, J. and SAMPSON, T., (2008). E‐Informality in Venezuela: The ‘Other Path’ of Technology. Bulletin of Latin American Research. 27 (1), 102-118
Sampson, T., (2007). The Accidental Topology of Digital Culture: How the Network Becomes Viral. TRANSFORMATIONS Journal of Media & Culture (14)
Sampson, T., (2005). Dr Aycock's Bad Idea. M/C Journal. 8 (1)
Sampson, T., (2004). A Virus in Info-Space. M/C Journal. 7 (3)
Lugo, J., Sampson, T. and Lossada, M., (2002). Latin America's new cultural industries still play old games - From the Banana Republic to Donkey Kong. Game Studies. 2 (2)
Books (8)
Sampson, T., (2026). The Struggle for [User] Experience: Birth, School, Work, Death. University of Minnesota Press
Sampson, A., (2022). Experience Capitalism: Selected Texts English / Spanish Translated by Ana Fabbri. Rizosfera
Sampson, TD., (2020). A Sleepwalker's Guide to Social Media. John Wiley & Sons. 1509537422. 9781509537426
(2018). Affect and Social Media. Rowman & Littlefield International Ltd. 1786604396. 9781786604392
Sampson, A., Lancellotti, E., Davoli, P., Rustichelli, L. and Cattini, A., (2017). Digital Neuroland. An Interview with Tony D. Sampson. Rizosfera (Rhizonomics – RZN002)
Sampson, TD., (2016). The Assemblage Brain Sense Making in Neuroculture. U of Minnesota Press. 1452953295. 9781452953298
Sampson, TD., (2012). Virality: Contagion Theory in the Age of Networks. U of Minnesota Press. 0816670056. 9780816670055
Parikka, J. and Sampson, TD., (2009). The Spam Book On Viruses, Porn, and Other Anomalies from the Dark Side of Digital Culture. Hampton Press (NJ). 1572739150. 9781572739154
Book chapters (20)
Sampson, A., (2026). Machine-Fictioning Neuroculture: Methods for Critiquing Neuroscientific Interventions in Art, Philosophy and Everyday Life. In: An Activist Neuroaesthetic Reader. Editors: Neidich, W., . 978-3-948212-84-1
Sampson, T., (2025). Affect, Cognition and the Neurosciences. In: Mapping Affect Theory. Editors: Lara, A., . Galmuri
Sampson, A., (2025). "Myśląc z wirusami. Trzy propozycje teoretyczne," translated by Mateusz Chaberski.. In: Myśląc z wirusami. Editors: Borowski, M. and Sugiera, M., . Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego 2024. 978-83-233-5462-8
Sampson, A., (2024). New Punctums, Proto- Perceptions, and Animated Entanglements. In: Human Perception and Digital Information Technologies: Animation, the Body and Affect. Editors: Tamari, T., . Bristol University Press. 86- 108. 978-1529226188
Sampson, A. and Parikka, J., (2024). As Novas Lógicas da Mídia Viral. In: Arte, Cultura e o Mundo Contemporâneo Digital. Editors: Gobira, P., . Belo Horizonte: LPF Edições. 85- 96. 9786501025117
Sampson, T., (2023). Nonconscious Affect: Cognitive, Embodied, or Nonbifurcated Experience?. In: The Affect Theory Reader 2: Worldings, Tensions, Futures. Editors: Seigworth, GJ. and Pedwell, C., . Duke University Press. 295- 314. 978-1-4780-2491-0
Sampson, A. and Parikka, J., (2022). Sampson, T. D. & Parikka, J. (2022). ‘The New Logics of Viral Media’.. In: In After Lockdown – Opening Up: Psychosocial Transformations in the Wake of Covid-19 0 . Ellis, D., & Voela, A. (eds.) Studies in the Psychosocial Series. Palgrave Macmillan.. Editors: Ellis, D. and Voela, A.,
Sampson, A., (2020). Cosmic Topologies of Imitation: From the Horror of Digital Autotoxicus to the Auto-Toxicity of the Social. In: Autoimmunities. Routledge. 0367536021. 9780367536022
Sampson, TD., (2019). Collapsing Boundaries. In: Theater. transcript Verlag. 189- 210. 9783837649062
Sampson, TD., (2019). Collapsing Boundaries Ambivalence and Interference. In: Emerging Affinities Possible Futures of Performative Arts. 189- 210
Sampson, TD., Ellis, D. and Maddison, S., (2018). Introduction: On Affect, Social Media and Criticality. 1- 17
Sampson, TD., (2017). The Self–Other Topology. In: Boundaries of Self and Reality Online. Elsevier. 123- 139. 9780128041574
Sampson, TD. and Parikka, J., (2013). Learning from Network Dysfunctionality. Wiley. 450- 460. 9781444332247
Sampson, TD. and Parikka, J., (2013). Learning from Network Dysfunctionality: Accidents, Enterprise, and Small Worlds of Infection. In: A Companion to New Media Dynamics. 450- 460
Sampson, TD., (2013). Contagion theory: Beyond the microbe. In: Critical Digital Studies A Reader. 120- 143
Sampson, TD., (2010). Error-Contagion: Network Hypnosis and Collective Culpability. In: Error Glitch Noise and Jam in New Media Cultures. 232- 253
Sampson, A., (2010). A Prospective Analysis of the Video Games Industry in Latin America: From Banana Republic to Donkey Kong. In: FILE: Electronic Language International Festival 10 Years Commemorative Book, Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Sampson, A. and Parikka, J., (2009). On Anomalous Objects: An Introduction. In: The Spam Book On Viruses, Porn, and Other Anomalies from the Dark Side of Digital Culture. Hampton Press (NJ). 1572739150. 9781572739154
Sampson, A., (2009). How Networks Become Viral: Three Questions Concerning Universal Contagion. In: The Spam Book On Viruses, Porn, and Other Anomalies from the Dark Side of Digital Culture. Editors: Sampson, T. and Parikka, J., . Hampton Press (NJ). 1572739150. 9781572739154
Sampson, T. and Lugo, J., (2003). The Discourse of Convergence. A Neo-liberal Trojan Horse. In: Broadcasting & Convergence: New Articulations of the Public Service Remit.. Editors: Lowe, GF. and Hujanen, T., . Nordicom. 9789189471184
Conferences (2)
Sampson, A., Tofield, G., Branch, A. and Tucker, I., Feeling Pride in Place Through Local Heritage Projects: An Academic-Non-Academic Dialogue on the Emotional and Economic Geographies of Levelling Up
Sampson, A., Branch, A. and Tofield, G., From Economic to Emotional Geography: Understanding the Importance of the Mezzo-Level in Community Development
Reports and Papers (4)
Sampson, T., (2026). Imagination as Policy Infrastructure
Sampson, A., (2025). Leveraging Emotional Geographies of Heritage to Boost Community Empowerment at the Mezzolevel
Sampson, A., (2025). Leveraging Emotional Geographies of Heritage to Boost Community Empowerment in Key Cities: Culture, Place and Development: Ideas for driving development through culture and creativity for the benefit of local people and places
Sampson, A., (2024). Re-imagining Pride-in-Place at the Mezzolevel: : Although Labour Admit Boris Talked a “Good Game” on Levelling Up, the Tories Haven’t Delivered. What Next?
Grants and funding
2026
Sustainable Uttlesford Community Project
University of Essex
2025
Embedding Essex Research in National Policy Frameworks: Co-design and Execution of (KCIN) APPG's Agenda
University of Essex (QR Impact Fund)
Contact
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For arranging an in-person or Zoom meeting, please contact me through my Essex email.
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