Fair Media Council Advisory Board Member

Thomas Cooper is a pioneering scholar in media ethics and criticism, with a career that spans decades of academic leadership, international advocacy, and creative expression. He is the author or co-author of seven influential books, including Media Fast/Fast Media, Television and Ethics, and An Ethics Trajectory, and has published more than 100 articles and reviews. As co-publisher of Media Ethics, a respected academic and professional journal, Cooper has helped shape global conversations around responsibility in communication. Most recently, he served as an ethics expert for the United Nations, developing a new ethics curriculum for students and faculty worldwide.

A former assistant to famed media theorist Marshall McLuhan at the University of Toronto, Cooper co-produced some of the earliest audio-spacebridges connecting the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He has held guest scholar appointments at leading institutions including Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, and Yale, and served as a speechwriter for Puma’s former CEO. A playwright and composer with a doctorate in drama and communication, Cooper’s creative work has been performed internationally. He is the founding director of the Association for Responsible Communication, which was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988, and taught for 35 years at Emerson College, in addition to roles at Harvard, the University of Hawaii, and beyond.