Jukka Kortti

I am a social science historian, who has made several comprehensive studies on media history and intellectual history. As a media historian I have studied the history of television, advertising, journalism and documentary film. As a social historian, I have been interested in intellectual history, culture and student activism, the history of everyday life, the history of consumption and modernisation processes.

My latest book is Media in History. An Introduction to the Meanings and Transformations of Communication over Tim' (Macmillan Ed./Red Globe Press 2019) My other books include two comprehensive studies on the history of Finnish television: Näköradiosta digiboksiin: Suomalaisen television sosiokulttuurinen historia (From Visual Radio to Set-Top Box: The Socio-Cultural History of Finnish television). (Gaudeamus, 2007) and Modernisaatiomurroksen kaupalliset merkit. 60-luvun suomalainen televisiomainonta (The Commercialised Signs of Modernisation. Finnish Television Advertising in the 1960s) (Finnish Literature Society Publishing, 2003). I have also written the history of the student paper Ylioppilaslehti (796 pages), which is not just “any student paper,” but a major Finnish institution that has seen most of Finland’s cultural and political elite pass through its editorial staff in the 20th century.

Currently, I work as University Reseacher at the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Social Sciences, where I research and write the history of the Faculty of Social Sciences. I am also the member of the master’s degree programme Society & Change, the steering group of doctoral programme for Philosophy, Arts, and Society and the deputy member of the faculty council of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki. 

I have been teaching courses on media history, television studies, world politics, integration and globalization, management communication, intercultural communication, qualitative methods, interview studies, history and analysing of advertising, and history of consumption in Finnish universities.