Algorithms and Accountability took place in the Department of Law at New York University in February. Here’s the description of the symposium: Scholars, stakeholders, and policymakers question the adequacy of existing mechanisms governing algorithmic decision-making and grapple with new challenges… Read More ›
Digital Sociology 
Call for Papers: Mediated Intimacies: Relationships, Bodies and Technology
Mediated Intimacies: Relationships, Bodies and Technology Call for Papers: Special Issue of Journal of Gender Studies to be published March 2017 edited by Alison Winch, Feona Attwood, Jamie Hakim. We are looking for 7000 word completed essays by 31st December… Read More ›
Job Opportunity – Digital Culture Program Officer/Director
Job Opportunity – Digital Culture Program Officer/Director http://www.ssrc.org/about/employment/listings/digital-culture-program-officer-director/ Summary The SSRC seeks a Program Officer/Director for its new Digital Culture program. The program engages the opportunities and challenges presented to the social sciences, and scholarship more broadly, by the digital revolution. In… Read More ›
Senior Lecturership in Digital Cultures
Job vacancy: https://www.hirewire.co.uk/HE/1061247/MS_JobDetails.aspx?JobID=60631 Closing date: 19 May 2015 The post-holder will contribute to the continuing success of the MA Digital Culture and Society, and will join the team teaching on and further developing the BA Digital Cultures. They will be… Read More ›
Working in the on-demand economy
An interesting though remarkably uncritical discussion of working in the on-demand economy:
Sussex Humanities Lab Doctoral Research Scholarships (2015)
The Sussex Humanities Lab at the University of Sussex is pleased to invite applications to study for a PhD. We are offering 4 Home/EU fully funded scholarships and 1 International fully funded scholarship OR 5 Home/EU fully funded scholarships depending on… Read More ›
Early retirement blogging
Would you like to retire? While many might have this thought as a fleeting whim on a bad day at work, the internet is giving rise to a subculture in which strategies to achieve retirement earlier are shared and refined…. Read More ›
The Social Ontology of Digital Data & Digital Technology, July 8th in London
This innovative conference brings together leading figures from a variety of fields which address issues of digital technology and digital data. We’ve invited speakers with a range of intellectual perspectives and disciplinary backgrounds who engage with questions relating to digital… Read More ›
The burden of continual assessment in a digital age
Due to my current reliance upon a laptop that’s unsuitable for my work, I presently find myself running a disk cleaning utility on a near daily basis. It’s a very useful bit of software that very quickly wipes caches and… Read More ›
Some brief thoughts about digital social ontology
A few years ago I sat in a publishing workshop in London listening to a presentation about ontology. My confusion grew as the presenter continued to make all manner of claims about ontology that I didn’t understand. As someone who… Read More ›
The On-Demand Diaries: Micro-tasking and the Future of Work
For those unfamiliar with it, Microtasking could be the future of work. As well as digitised tasks that can literally be minutes long (see Amazon Mechanical Turk) companies like TaskRabbit unbundle what might have previously been temporary jobs and allow… Read More ›
What will micro-publishing look like in higher education?
A few weeks ago I was browsing a photography bookshop in London and came across the term ‘micro-publisher’ for the first time. The friend I was with seemed slightly bemused that I hadn’t encountered the term and explained that it… Read More ›
The Social Ontology of Digital Data & Digital Technology, July 8th in London
This innovative conference brings together leading figures from a variety of fields which address issues of digital technology and digital data. We’ve invited speakers with a range of intellectual perspectives and disciplinary backgrounds who engage with questions relating to digital… Read More ›
The Journal of Academic Videos
What a brilliant idea! See more here: Audiovisual Thinking is a leading journal of academic videos about audiovisuality, communication and media. The journal is a pioneering forum where academics and educators can articulate, conceptualize and disseminate their research about audiovisuality… Read More ›
Bruno Latour: The Whole is Always Smaller than the Parts
Bruno Latour – The Whole is Always Smaller than the Parts -What Digital Media do to Social Theory from MOMA on Vimeo. The digital availability of profiles deeply modifies the definition of what it an individual agent and, reciprocally, what… Read More ›
Using social media to improve the student experience: creating a departmental back channel for undergraduates
A few years ago when I was running the Twitter feed for the Sociology department at Warwick, I noticed how readily first year undergraduates tweeted practical questions to the account during their first few weeks of the first term. Students… Read More ›
Opening up @soc_imagination as a platform for public engagement
In my talk at the Digital Sociology conference in New York in February 2015 (available online here) I explained my enthusiasm for the new possibilities afforded by social media for doing research in real time with communities. These are the… Read More ›
19 interesting ways to communicate knowledge
Through Design Fiction (e.g. Zero Hours) Through Social Fiction (e.g. Low Fat Love) Through Visual Journalism (e.g. Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt) Through Visual Biography (e.g. Robert Moses: The Master Builder of New York City) Through Graphic Novels (I… Read More ›
CfP: The Politics of Data (Science)
The Politics of Data (Science) This special issue of Discover Society will explore the political implications of ‘big data’ and the systems of expertise emerging around it, including though not limited to Data Science. In doing so it will aim… Read More ›
CfP: The Politics of Data (Science)
The Politics of Data (Science) This special issue of Discover Society will explore the political implications of ‘big data’ and the systems of expertise emerging around it, including though not limited to Data Science. In doing so it will aim… Read More ›
The Social Ontology of Digital Data & Digital Technology, July 8th in London
This innovative conference brings together leading figures from a variety of fields which address issues of digital technology and digital data. We’ve invited speakers with a range of intellectual perspectives and disciplinary backgrounds who engage with questions relating to digital… Read More ›
Call for an Internet Social Forum
The Internet belongs to all people – Let’s occupy it More and more, the Internet is the place where we meet up with our friends, get information, organise work, store our pictures and texts, do our banking, see videos, buy… Read More ›
Lately everybody seems to be talking about Digital Sociology
Or at least it’s easy to get that impression if you spend your time talking to digital sociologists. Last month saw the world’s first digital sociology (mini) conference, part of the Eastern Sociological Society’s event in New York. It was… Read More ›
An invitation to Digital Public Sociology
This is a slightly abridged version of the talk I gave at the Digital Sociology mini-conference at the Eastern Sociological Society conference in February 2015. At some point this will be the basis for a paper: Listen to ‘What is… Read More ›
CfP: Web Science 2015
Call for Papers & Posters (text version) The Web Science conference welcomes participation from all disciplines including, but not limited to, art, computer and information sciences, communication, economics, humanities, informatics, law, linguistics, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology, in pursuit… Read More ›
The Philosophy of Data Science
I conducted this series of interviews for the LSE Impact Blog: Sabina Leonelli: “What constitutes trustworthy data changes across time and space” Rob Kitchin: “Big data should complement small data, not replace them.” Evelyn Ruppert: “Social consequences of Big Data… Read More ›
‘Questioning Technology’: The Importance of Empirical Work and Ontological Philosophy
by Declan Mcdowell-Naylor There’s little question that, for at least two decades, technology has been a centre piece of enquiries across the humanities and social sciences. Nearly every field has made valuable empirical contributions, addressing plenty of normative questions ‘about technology’…. Read More ›
What is Digital Sociology?
This podcast is a lecture given by Deborah Lupton at the University of Warwick on January 13th:
The Promise of Digital Sociology
My response to a lecture by Deborah Lupton on Digital Sociology at the University of Warwick on January 13th.