Rui Hou is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Saint Mary’s University (SMU). Prior to joining SMU, he worked as postdoctoral scholar at Toronto Metropolitan University (2022-2025) and University of Toronto (2020-2022). He holds a PhD in sociology from Queen’s University. Empirically, Rui works in two domains: (1) A primary research stream focuses on how technological innovation shapes the exercise of authoritarian power and how individuals experience and respond to the growing digitalization of control; (2) Beyond purely theoretical critiques, a second research direction focuses on community-based interdisciplinary collaboration, aiming to address the challenges that innovations in media technology and artificial intelligence pose to the well-being of marginalized and racialized communities. His work has been published in high-impact journals, including the New Media & Society, Governance, Surveillance & Society, Social Sciences & Medicine, The China Quarterly, China Information, and Ethnography.
Areas of Expertise
Science and technology studies, political sociology, qualitative methods, surveillance studies, community-based research, digital health, sociology of emotions, China
Selected Publications
Rui Hou, Silang Huang, Kenneth Fung, Alan Li, Chunxian Jia, Shengli Cheng, Jianguo Gao, Jingxuan Zhang, and Josephine Wong, 2024, Who Are Helping Students? A Qualitative Analysis of the Mental Health Service Providers in China's University Setting, Social Science & Medicine, Volume 363, Online Available.
Rui Hou and Diana Fu, 2024, Sorting Citizens: Governing via China’s Social Credit System. Governance, 37(1), 59-78.
Rui Hou, 2024, Beyond Big Brother: How to Study Tech-driven Authoritarianism with Restricted Access to State Institutions. Ethnography, 25(3) 394–413.
Rui Hou, 2023, Outsourcing Authoritarian Governance: The Privatization of Chinese Mayor’s Hotlines. China Information, 37(2), 207–228.
Rui Hou, 2020, The Commercialization of Internet-opinion Management: How the Market is Engaged in State Control in China. New Media & Society, 22(12), 2238–2256. .
Rui Hou, 2020, Maintaining Social Stability without Solving Problems: Emotional Repression in the Chinese Petition System. The China Quarterly, 243 (September), 635-654.
Rui Hou, 2017, Neoliberal Governance or Digitalized Autocracy? The Rising Market for Online Opinion Surveillance in China. Surveillance & Society, 15 (3/4), 418-424.