Nicco Mele

An eminent political and social analyst in the United States, he is an expert on the impact of the mass media and social networks in the realm of political power. He is presently on the faculty at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and was director of the Center from 2016 to 2019. Besides his academic work, he has worked for many years in the field of political communication and fundraising for electoral campaigns. As webmaster for the 2004 presidential campaign of Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont, his work in popularising the use of technology and social media brought about profound changes in American politics. Hence, one of his main areas of expertise is the relationship between digital technologies and fundraising. He has also extensively researched changes in the political and media landscapes brought about by the proliferation of the Internet and new forms of connectivity that favour social networks, a phenomenon he calls “radical connectivity”. This is the main theme of his book The End of Big: How The Internet Makes David The New Goliath (St. Martin’s Press, 2013), where he argues that radical connectivity has drained traditional political institutions of their power and passed it on to individuals and algorithms. Nicco Mele is also a poetry lover and, accordingly, one of the founders of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival and co-producer of Even Though The Whole World is Burning (2013), a documentary about the famous American poet W. S. Merwin.