Digital Society
Staff and students working in the digital society research theme here at the University of Salford, proactively generate knowledge, theory, public engagement and various forms of research impact regarding the increasing digitisation of our lives.
We are always open to:
- meeting new industry partners
- exploring collaborations with other academic institutions; nationally and globally;
- bringing new postgraduate students into the team;
- hosting visiting researchers;
- and making honorary appointments at Professorial and Research Fellow levels for those with an excellent track record in either academia or industry.
Please do get in touch with us if you are interested in collaborating.
Dr Lisa Garwood-Cross
University Fellow in Digital Health and Society
Co-Lead Digital Society Research Theme
e. l.j.garwood-cross@salford.ac.uk
Research Profile
Ben Light
Professor of Digital Society
Co-Lead Digital Society Research Theme
e. b.light@salford.ac.uk
Research Profile
What do we mean by ‘The Digital’?
The ‘digital’ relates to a diverse range of ideas, devices, data, software and infrastructures which have been taking an increasingly significant role in our lives since over the past 50 years. During this time we have, for instance, seen the rise of home computers, video games, mobile phones, tablets, the web, dot.coms, social media, smart technologies, streaming services, algorithms and artificial intelligence. Of course some forms of information, computing and communications technologies were in use by certain people prior to this, but no where near to the levels of engagement and modes of acceleration we have seen since then.
Profound changes that have been variously, diversely, and often unequally experienced, since the introduction of early home computers such as the ZX81 in the early 1980s, the internet in the form the Web in 1983 and the first UK mobile phone call in 1985. Fast forward to the 1990s and changes experienced by more of society were seen, for example in relation to consumers (e-commerce), our intimate lives (the introduction of internet dating) and how we spent our leisure time (the Sony Playstation).
In the 2000s, came the iPhone (and the Appstore) and 3G, the technology that allowed mobile phones to connect to the internet. During this decade a plethora of Social Media were launched, as was Netflix. The 2010s saw the roles and politics of algorithms get increased attention and it ushered in smart watches, self driving cars and tablets such as the iPad.
Early in the 2020s fuelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the rapid uptake of technologies such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, home working has become a reality for many in certain jobs and artificial intelligence has come to the fore as it raises significant ethical and political questions for our lives.
Researching the digital is complicated…
This is because of many things, including:
- the sheer number of academic disciplines that seek to generate knowledge about this area;
- rhetoric regarding change as necessarily continuous and unavoidable in the name of digial innovation;
- and, the corresponding ask on academia to keep pace with the digital world and engage with narratives regarding continuous improvement, and the launch of products and services that are pitched as markedly different to what has gone before.
In response, we are not deterministic in our view of the design, development and uptake of digital arrangements. We know that usage can be non-existent, uneven and far from designers intentions as their visions for products and services meet with unexpected indifference, resistance and innovation in use. We also know that processes of, selling, commercially or otherwise, are integral to the design, delivery and outcomes of digital artefacts and the lives we attempt to create with them.
Who We Are
Several members of this theme were returned to the University of Salford’s Unit of assessment 34: Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Library and Information Management submission as part of the UK Research Excellent Framework exercise in 2021. This submission climbed the rankings to sit within the top third of institutions in the UK. Notably 77.1% of the outputs we submitted and 100% of our research impact was ranked as Internationally Excellent or World Leading1.
We are a multidisciplinary team of over 30 academics and postgraduate researchers who examine the diverse experiences we have in our lives due to our intensities of engagement, or not, with the digital. We are comprised of people from Counselling and Psychotherapy, Criminology, Information Management, Internet Studies, Media and Cultural Studies, Nursing, Psychology, Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work.
A key consideration for us is the need explore and challenge the ways in which equality and diversity, and their intersections, can have differential positive and negative effects on our experiences of digital life, and thus, often today, life in general. While this agenda speaks to traditional notions of equality, diversity and inclusion in the UK, we think about this in other ways as well, for example in terms of:
- social class;
- levels of literacy;
- where English is not a first language;
- living situation;
- location of residence;
- non-normative lifestyle preferences.
We study the relationship between digitisation and:
- areas of personal life: from childhood, families and health, to identities, relationships and sexuality;
- areas of public life: from communities, leisure activities and consumption, to citizenship, work, and political activism;
- the changing the nature of academic research, where we develop, deploy and critique digital methods, engage with considerations of the ethics of big data, and critical data studies more generally.
Our Work
Below are links to the diverse range of work undertaken by the staff and postgraduate research students of the digital society theme.