Dr Felix Simon

Felix M. Simon is a communication researcher and Research Fellow in AI and Digital News at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Before joining us, he was a doctoral student at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII).  

He was a Knight News Innovation Fellow at Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism (2021-2024) and is an affiliate at the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life (CITAP) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As a former journalist, he regularly writes and comments on technology, media, and politics for various international outlets. 

Felix has been researching the implications of AI in journalism and the news since 2019. His doctoral research sought to understand the structural implications of artificial intelligence, including forms of generative AI, for news organisations’ gatekeeping processes—the production and distribution of news—and the public arena. His doctoral project was generously funded by the Leverhulme Trust and two OII-Dieter Schwarz Foundation Fellowship awards and he has won additional competitive grants from the Minderoo-Oxford Challenge Fund, the Tow Center at Columbia University, Balliol College, among others, for this research on AI, news, and information. 

Felix has published widely, among others, in New Media & Society, Digital Journalism, Journalism Studies, Journalism Practice, The Information Society, International Communication Gazette, Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, International Journal of Press/Politics, the International Handbook of Internet Research and Transformative Works and Cultures and has co-authored various research reports on topics ranging from innovation in the media to COVID-19 misinformation. 

He has presented work at various conferences, including ICA and the International Journalism Festival and is an experienced moderator of academic and industry panels. His research and commentary has appeared, among others, in The Guardian, The Washington Post, Politico, Financial Times, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Nature, New Statesman, Business Insider, WIRED, CNN, and the BBC. He has given evidence to inquiries of the UK House of Lords and House of Commons, press regulator IMPRESS, and the United Nations, and frequently advises media organisations on AI. 

In May 2023, he was awarded the Hans Bausch Media Prize by German public broadcaster SWR in cooperation with the Institute for Media Studies at the University of Tübingen for his work on AI and news. 

His past and current research focus on AI in the news, the political economy of AI and news, political communication and democracy in the digital age, as well as the changing nature of journalism and the media in the 21st century. In addition, he takes an active interest in populism and the future of mis- and disinformation studies.  

Felix graduated with a BA in Film and Media Studies as well as English Studies (Distinction) from Goethe-University Frankfurt, and he holds an MSc in Social Science of the Internet from the OII. During his previous studies, he was funded by the journalism programme of the German Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation. He is currently a fellow at the Salzburg Global Seminar and an Associate Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy and sits on the Advisory Committee of the Center for News, Technology & Innovation. 

A full list of his publications can be found on Google Scholar. 

He can be found on LinkedIn and X