Current members:

Academic Members
Victoria Alexander, David Frohlich (DWRC), Colin B. Grant, Nicola Green, Christine Hine, Paul Hodkinson, Hugh Ortega Breton, Cornel Sandvoss

Postdoctoral and Visiting Research Fellows
Ali al-Azzawi, Kristen Ali-Eglinton, Carrie Dunn, Christopher Lim Sze Chong, Christine Rivers, Jane Vincent

Research Students
Owen Daly-Jones, Phil Ely, Connie Golsteijn, Nitida Sangsingkeo, Jocelyn Spence, Sam Zargham

Current and recent research
Victoria Alexander's current research focuses on changes in the systems of production, distribution and consumption of the arts in digital media, and on arts philanthropy. She has previously written extensively on the sociology of the arts (both fine and popular forms), on state funding for artists and arts organisations, and on museums. She is also interested in organisational culture (particularly in cultural industries), and visual sociology. She has been part of an ESRC-funded project on conceptions of vulnerability, with her contribution involving the use of visual media methods to study participants’ views of their neighbourhoods and their sense of communities.

David Frohlich's work applies sociological thinking and social research methods to the innovation of new digital media technologies.  Recent work has focussed on the digitization of community media in various forms and its role in community communication and empowerment. For example the Community Generated Media project examines the use of mobile digital storytelling in rural South Africa while the Bespoke project has examined the role of community journalism in participatory design.  Further details of past and present projects are shown on the website for  Digital World Research Centre.  David has a longstanding interest in the future of domestic photography and has recently published a book with Risto Sarvas entitled 'From snapshots to social media: The changing picture of domestic photography (2011). 

Colin B. Grant’s current research programme is part of a critical engagement with complexities of self, systems and media in an age of hypercritical modernity. His long-standing work in social and communication theory is a response to the large-scale political and sociological theories of Jürgen Habermas and Niklas Luhmann and contemporary debates around the complex self in interaction, with strong epistemological foundations. A Sonderheft dedicated to his work, including commentaries by Siegfried J. Schmidt, Ernst von Glasersfeld, Dirk Baecker and Mike Sandbothe, appeared in 2009. He is the author of Post-transcendental Communication: Contexts of Human Autonomy (2008),  Functions and Fictions of Communication (2000), Uncertainty and Communication (2007), and Literary Communication from Consensus to Rupture (1995), and is also editor of five other collections of essays.

Nicola Green's current research focusses on the ways a range of new media, internet and mobile technologies intervene in (online and offline) social discourses and practices of sustainability. As part of RESOLVE she has been involved in projects on sustainable leisure, domestic IT consumption and sustainability, and 'collaborative consumption' via new media. Her previous work has included research projects on young people and mobile technologies, mobile technologies and surveillance (data, privacy and trust), the globalisation of personal data, and mobile media and technology design. She is co-author (with Leslie Haddon) of Mobile Communications (Berg, 2008) She has been part of research networks on the 'Futures of Feminist Technoscience' and 'Digiplay: Technologies of leisure and pleasure'.

Christine Hine's current research includes work on ethnographic studies of information technology and the Internet. She has also taken a lead role in promoting discussion of methodologies for sociological understanding of the Internet, and has a significant interest in the development of ethnography in technical settings, and in “virtual methods” (the use of the Internet for social research). In particular, she has developed mobile and connective approaches to ethnography which combine online and offline social contexts. She has conducted extensive work in the role of information technologies in science – a recent relevant project used ethnographic and historical approaches to understanding the role of information and communication technologies in biological research.

Paul Hodkinson’s research has examined the role of media and new media in the construction of identities and communities. This forms a key part of his ongoing research into youth subcultures and also relates to more specific work on young people’s uses of social networking sites. Paul is currently researching the significance of processes of ageing among older members of music and style subcultures. More generally his interests include the sociology of youth cultures, debates on the future of subcultural theory and the sociology of popular music. Paul has authored a range of media- and culture-related publications, including the recent book, Media, Culture and Society (Sage 2010).

Hugh Ortega-Breton's current research focuses on new “psycho-cultural” approaches to media and culture which apply object-relations psychoanalysis to the investigation of popular and political culture. His most recent work emerges from research that examined the representation of emotions in “war on terror” -related television: contributions from this work appear in Discourses and Practices of Terrorism (Routledge 2010). Hugh’s current research interest is in how meanings are communicated, particularly in the substantive areas of emotion, television, risk, radio, and armed conflict.

Cornel Sandvoss specialises in the sociology of media and culture, in particular audience research and the role of social and cultural theory in contemporary media research. His current projects explore the interplay between political intertextuality, media consumption and voting patterns. His research has in particular focused on cultural globalisation, as well as the study of fan audiences in the realms of spectator sports, television, popular music and film, highlighting the profound impact of fandom on the organisation of identity and citizenship in everyday life.

Professional Activities:

Victoria Alexander is Chair of the ESA Research Network on Sociology of the Arts and is a member of the Advisory Board for the International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society.

David Frohlich is a founding editor of the international journal Personal and Ubiquitous Computing.

Colin Grant is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Empedocles: European Journal of the Philosophy of Communication, and is editing a new book series in Interdisciplinary Communication Studies.

Nicola Green currently serves as editorial board member for Surveillance and Society, the journal of the Surveillance Studies Network. She is also currently a UK management committee member for the EU COST 'Living in Surveillance Societies' network. Until 2009 she co-edited the online journal Sociological Research Online. She is currently co-editing (with Leslie Haddon) the New Media Series for Berg Publishers.

Christine Hine until 2008 served as President of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST).

Paul Hodkinson is co-editor of the ‘Culture’ section of the international journal, Sociology Compass. He is also external examiner for the MA in Popular Music Studies at the University of Liverpool. He has served on the executive committees for the British Sociological Association Youth Study Group and the UK and Ireland branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music.

Hugh Ortega-Breton is an advisory group member of the AHRC-funded Media and the Inner World Research Network  which investigates the relationship between emotion and popular culture. He is the Assistant Reviews Editor for Free Associations: Psychoanalysis and Culture, Media, Groups, Politics.

Cornel Sandvoss is editor of Popular Communication:  The International Journal of Media and Culture (with Lee Harrington and Jonathan Gray), and former Chair of the Popular Communication Division of the International Communication Association (ICA).

To find out more contact Dr Nicola Green:

Department of Sociology
University of Surrey
Guildford
Surrey GU2 7XH
UK
Tel:  01483 683964
Fax: 01483 689551
email:  n.green@surrey.ac.uk