Stephen Monteiro

Now in print!

What makes our smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches so irresistible? Needy Media explores how features such as face recognition, awareness sensors, and touchscreens play on the senses, tap into our emotions, and develop affective dependence.

Available from McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Now in paperback!

The Fabric of Interface: Mobile Media, Design, and Gender

Tracing the genealogy of our physical interaction with mobile devices back to textile and needlecraft culture.

Available from MIT Press.

About Stephen Monteiro: I am a media and culture scholar specializing in contemporary networked communication practices, data collection and analysis, and their impact on identity and equity. My recent research examines how people, media objects, and networks co-exist and interact by exploring their cultural roots, historical antecedents, and ideological assumptions. From pressing buttons and swiping screens to scanning faces and counting steps, this research emphasizes the complex relationships between datafication and everyday activities by highlighting the role played by basic forms and processes of contemporary networked exchange. In addition to this work, I have published research in image studies, the history of media, and visual culture.

Author and editor of several books and articles on screen-based interfaces and social practices, I have received research grants from organizations and institutions in Canada, France, and the United States. I teach in the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University in Montreal and hold degrees from the Sorbonne (PhD and MA), Columbia University (MFA), and Brown University (AB).

On Bluesky: @stephenmonteiro.bsky.social