Thomas Conner
Visiting Assistant Professor of Media Studies, University of Tulsa
Center for Community News
BIO
2025 CCN Champion
Thomas Conner is a communication researcher and teacher — with a PhD in Communication & Science Studies from UC San Diego — and currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Media Studies at The University of Tulsa. He is also a seasoned writer and experienced features journalist for more than 20 years, last seen as a cultural critic for the Chicago Sun-Times.
His scholarly research looks at people looking at technical imagery — how they make sense of what they see & how the technology itself shapes each interaction. Thomas focuses on (optical) holograms and (digital) “holograms,” which includes a broad swath of modern visual experience, from the Pepper’s Ghost stage illusion in Victorian London to the Tupac hologram at Coachella. He writes about this historically, phenomenologically, and ethnographically in work that intersects with media studies, visual studies, cultural studies, performance, artificial intelligence, and materiality.
Bio
2025 CCN Champion
Thomas Conner is a communication researcher and teacher — with a PhD in Communication & Science Studies from UC San Diego — and currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Media Studies at The University of Tulsa. He is also a seasoned writer and experienced features journalist for more than 20 years, last seen as a cultural critic for the Chicago Sun-Times.
His scholarly research looks at people looking at technical imagery — how they make sense of what they see & how the technology itself shapes each interaction. Thomas focuses on (optical) holograms and (digital) “holograms,” which includes a broad swath of modern visual experience, from the Pepper’s Ghost stage illusion in Victorian London to the Tupac hologram at Coachella. He writes about this historically, phenomenologically, and ethnographically in work that intersects with media studies, visual studies, cultural studies, performance, artificial intelligence, and materiality.