John Seward Johnson III

During his time at Harmony, Johnson has co-authored a number of research publications, including Audience preferences are predicted by temporal reliability of neural processing published in Nature Communications, Measuring Impact: The Importance of Evaluation for Documentary Film Campaigns published in M/C Journal, Trailer brain: Neural and behavioral analysis of social issue documentary viewing with low-density EEG published in The International Workshop on Computational Models of Narrative (CMN’16), and “No Fracking Way!” Documentary Film, Discursive Opportunity, and Local Opposition against Hydraulic Fracturing in the United States, 2010 to 2013 published in the American Sociological Review.

In 2017, Harmony Institute became Harmony Labs with a renewed focus on understanding how influence operates within media systems and to experiment with media approaches that optimize for positive social effects. Harmony Labs also runs an accelerator that supports early-stage startups that are building media tech and developing data-driven approaches and tools for understanding and leveraging media influence.

Johnson studied mathematics and philosophy at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. He holds a master's degree from Columbia University in Research Methodology and Quantitative Methods, with which he graduated in 2013.

In 2012, Johnson co-founded Johnson Research Labs with Columbia University faculty David Park. JRL is a data science consulting company that developed creative, algorithmic intelligent frameworks allowing industry, government, and society at large to obtain deep insights and knowledge from large, complex systems.

In 2008, Johnson founded Harmony Institute, an applied research lab exploring how media and society interact and to experiment with using media to support an open, inclusive, democratic society. It has produced peer-reviewed publications, white papers, interactive tools, and contributed to many prominent social impact media projects and campaigns, in partnership with private foundations, advocacy organizations and media publishers.

In 2006, Johnson co-founded the website BuzzFeed with entrepreneur Jonah Peretti. BuzzFeed is an online media company that detects and accelerates traction of trending news and entertainment. It was initially conceived of as a media analytics company to track viral content.

In 2006, Johnson purchased a local weekly paper in Nosara, La Voz de Guanacaste, and in 2015 turned it into Costa Rica’s first non profit investigative newspaper.

Johnson was a founding investor in the Huffington Post in 2005, and continued to invest in the news site until 2011.

In 2004, Johnson and his wife Susan Short, purchased and renovated an old hotel in the Pacific surfing village of Nosara, Costa Rica in an effort to save it from being purchased and developed into a major international commercial-chain facility. The Harmony Hotel is a boutique health and wellness-oriented hotel. They are the hotel’s current owners, and have since purchased two other hotels in Nosara, the Sunset Shack and the Harbor Reef Hotel.

In 2003, Johnson was announced as a Henry Crown Fellow for the Aspen Institute, a nonprofit organization that “promotes the pursuit of common ground and deeper understanding in a nonpartisan and non-ideological setting”. He was a member of the Discover Class of 2003.

In 2002, Johnson established the Screenwriters Colony, a residency-inspired incubator for emerging screenwriters based in Nantucket, Massachusetts. The Screenwriters Colony works in partnership with the Nantucket Film Festival.

Johnson founded art and technology center Eyebeam in 1997. In 2003 Johnson hired Jonah Peretti as Director of Research and Development with the purpose of establishing the web as a place for art experiments. The went on to produce the first online series of public experiments in viral media in the “Contagious Media Showdown”. Eyebeam also produced the first geocoding of public campaign finance data, later served up as the site Fundrace and hosted by the Huffington Post.

Johnson wrote, produced, and directed two feature films: Without a Trace: June 10, 1979 (1991) and Ratchet (1996)

John Seward Johnson III (born September 2, 1966) is an American filmmaker, philanthropist and entrepreneur. He is a great-grandson of Robert Wood Johnson I (co-founder of Johnson & Johnson) and the son of American artist John Seward Johnson II.