Critical Information Studies (CIS)
The aim of the Critical Information Studies (CIS) research group is to interrogate various informational and related phenomena such as algorithms, Big Data, machine learning, internet governance, the Internet of Things (IoT), AI and the ‘Digital Divide’ from a range of ‘critical’ perspectives – phenomenological, hermeneutic, political-economic, legal, ethical, feminist, critical race theoretical, decolonial etc. We seek to facilitate an understanding of how information and related phenomena are conceptualised and discursively articulated by different groups, and to explore the nature of power relationships between different stakeholders.
Areas of specific research interest include:
- Social informatics – that is, the relationship between people and digital technologies – with a focus on the use of ICTs in civil society, community informatics, and learning technologies
- Historical studies of system and cybernetic thinkers
- Semiotic and narrative-based approaches to thinking about the provisional and contextual nature of informational phenomena
- Studies of religious phenomena through an informational lens
- Problem-oriented engineering and stakeholder relationships
- Embodied cognition, information ecology and design
- Internet governance, cybersecurity and privacy issues in relation to legal policy
- Ethical and societal implications of digital technologies and algorithmic governance
- Decolonial computing – that is, interrogating computing and ICT phenomena from a perspective informed by critical race theory and decolonial thought – with a focus on algorithmic racism