Publications

Books, journal articles, book chapters, and reports. For open access versions where available, use the DOI or PDF links below.

Books

Andrew McStay (2023). Automating Empathy: Decoding Technologies that Gauge Intimate Life. OUP.

Oxford Academic (open access) DOI

Andrew McStay (2018). Emotional AI: The Rise of Empathic Media. SAGE.

Andrew McStay (2017). Privacy and the Media. [].

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Andrew McStay (2016). Digital Advertising (Second Edition). Palgrave-Macmillan.

Andrew McStay (2014). Media Studies. [].

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Andrew McStay (2014). Privacy and Philosophy. [].

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Andrew McStay (2013). Creativity and Advertising. [].

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Andrew McStay (2011). The Mood of Information: A Critique of Online Behavioural Advertising. Bloomsbury.

Andrew McStay (2009). Digital Advertising.

Journal Articles & Book Chapters

Andrew McStay, Vian Bakir (2025). Soft law for unintentional empathy: addressing the governance gap in emotion-recognition AI technologies. Journal of Responsible Technology, 23, Article 100126.

Andrew McStay, Vian Bakir (2025). Move fast and break people? Ethics, companion apps, and the case of Character.ai. AI & Society.

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Vian Bakir, Andrew McStay (2025). The Moral Threshold of AI Companionship.

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Andrew McStay (2025). Emulated Empathy: Can Risks Be Countered by a Soft-Law Standard?. IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society.

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Vian Bakir, Alexander Laffer, Andrew McStay (2024). Blurring the moral limits of data markets: biometrics, emotion and data dividends. AI & SOCIETY.

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Vian Bakir, Andrew McStay (2024). Guarding Against Automated Empathy Attacks on Ontological Security.

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Vian Bakir, Alexander Laffer, Andrew McStay (2024). Combatting the Digital Influence Industry Within Surveillance Capitalism.

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Andrew McStay (2024). The hidden influence: exploring presence in human-synthetic interactions through ghostbots. Ethics Inf. Technol..

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Andrew McStay (2023). The Metaverse: Andrew McStay’s Responses to Cody Turner. Philosophy & Technology.

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Andrew McStay, Vian Bakir (2023). Automating empathy: overview, technologies, criticism.

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Andrew McStay (2023). Replika in the Metaverse: the moral problem with empathy in ‘It from Bit’. AI and Ethics.

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Vian Bakir, Alexander Laffer, Andrew McStay (2023). Human-First, Please: Assessing Citizen Views and Industrial Ambition for Emotional AI in Recommender Systems. Surveillance & Society.

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Andrew McStay (2023). The Metaverse: Surveillant Physics, Virtual Realist Governance, and the Missing Commons. Philosophy & Technology.

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Andrew McStay (2022). In cars (are we really safest of all?): interior sensing and emotional opacity. International Review of Law, Computers & Technology.

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Andrew McStay (2021). Emotional AI, Ethics, and Japanese Spice: Contributing Community, Wholeness, Sincerity, and Heart. Philosophy & Technology.

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Andrew McStay, Gilad Rosner (2021). Emotional artificial intelligence in children’s toys and devices: Ethics, governance and practical remedies. Big Data & Society.

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Andrew McStay (2020). Emotional AI, soft biometrics and the surveillance of emotional life: An unusual consensus on privacy. Big Data & Society.

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Andrew McStay (2019). Emotional AI and EdTech: serving the public good?. Learning, Media and Technology.

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Andrew McStay (2019). ‘This time with feeling?’ Assessing EU data governance implications of out of home appraisal based emotional AI. First Monday.

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Andrew McStay (2018). Digital advertising and adtech. The Advertising Handbook.

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Andrew McStay (2018). Fake News and The Economy of Emotions. Digital Journalism.

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Andrew McStay (2017). An Ethical Intervention into Conscious Cities. Conscious Cities Anthology 2018: Human-Centred Design, Science, and Technology.

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Andrew McStay (2017). Quantifying the Emotional Self. Privacy Laws and Business.

Andrew McStay (2017). Introduction to Special Theme Veillance and transparency: A critical examination of mutual watching in the post-Snowden, Big Data era. Big Data & Society.

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Andrew McStay (2017). 3.1 Micro-Moments, Liquidity, Intimacy and Automation: Developments in Programmatic Ad-tech. Commercial Communication in the Digital Age.

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Andrew McStay (2017). The Mood of Information in an Age of Empathic Media. Explorations in Critical Studies of Advertising.

Andrew McStay (2016). Empathic media and advertising: Industry, policy, legal and citizen perspectives (the case for intimacy). Big Data & Society.

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Andrew McStay (2016). Theorising Transparency Arrangements: Assessing Interdisciplinary Academic and Multi-Stakeholder Positions on Transparency in the post-Snowden Leak Era. Ethical Space: Journal of Communication.

Andrew McStay (2013). I consent: An analysis of the Cookie Directive and its implications for UK behavioral advertising. New Media & Society.

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Andrew McStay (2008). When the Script Runs Out, … What Happens to the Polarized War Body?. The War Body on Screen.

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Andrew McStay (2007). Trust, Data-Mining and Instantaneity: The Creation of the Online Accountable Consumer. Communication in the Age of Suspicion.

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Andrew McStay (2007). Regulating the Suicide Bomber: A Critical Examination of Viral Advertising and Simulations of Self-Broadcasting.. Ethical Space: Journal of Communication.

Andrew McStay (2006). ) Privacy, Online Advertising and Marketing Techniques: The Paradoxical Disappearance of the User. . Ethical Space: Journal of Communication.

Andrew McStay (2000). Privacy. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Surveillance, Security, and Privacy.

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Andrew McStay (2000). Latour, Bruno. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Surveillance, Security, and Privacy.

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Andrew McStay (2000). Advertising and Marketing Research. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Surveillance, Security, and Privacy.

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Reports

Vian Bakir, Andrew McStay, Chiemezie Ugochukwu (2026). Weaponised Empathy: AI Scams and the Nigeria–UK Response. Emotional AI Lab.

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Andrew McStay, Vian Bakir (2026). Do AI Companions Understand? Most UK Teens Say Yes. Emotional AI Lab.

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