Seth C. Lewis is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 2010, after completing a dissertation case study of the Knight Foundation and its efforts, via the News Challenge contest, to shape the substance and culture of digital innovation in journalism.

His research on media sociology, technology, and innovation examines how the professional boundaries of journalism are changing in the digital environment. His work has received several top-paper awards and has been published (or is forthcoming) in a number of academic journals, including Information, Communication & Society, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Mass Communication & Society, Journalism, Journalism Studies, Journalism Practice, and the International Journal of Communication, among others. He has co-edited two editions of The Future of News: An Agenda of Perspectives (2010 and 2012), and he is affiliated with the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University.

His current research focuses on emerging connections between journalism and computer science—manifest in cases such as open APIs in news organizations, R&D labs in newsrooms, the Hacks/Hackers grassroots network, etc.—and the implications of these interactions for the future of news and public knowledge.

Previously, he was a journalist for a number of news organizations, including The Miami Herald, and a 2005-06 Fulbright Scholar to Spain. He has a B.A. in Communication from Brigham Young University and an M.B.A. from Barry University.