Matthew Crain

Matthew Crain’s research, writing, and teaching focus on the political economy of media, advertising, and consumer surveillance.

In his book Profit Over Privacy: How Surveillance Advertising Conquered the Internet (2021), Crain gives digital surveillance a much-needed origin story by chronicling the development of internet advertising in the 1990s. (Read the book’s “privacy policy” here.)

Crain’s work shows how the modern “digital influence machine” was not inevitable and charts a path toward rebuilding a privacy-friendly internet. The book has been favorably reviewed by the London School of Economics, International Journal of Communication, Surveillance & Society, and Journal of Consumer Culture.

Other publications include scholarship about data brokers (New Media & Society), political manipulation (Journal of Information Policy), and media ownership (International Journal of Communication). Crain has written articles for CNN, Boston Review, and The Conversation, and has been interviewed by NPR Music, Consumer Reports, Vice, and Tech Policy Press.

At Miami, Crain teaches courses such as Media Industries, Communication Technology, and Media and the Data Society. Crain received his PhD from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and his master’s degree from DePaul University. Previously he taught at Queens College, City University of New York.