Manchester Digital Media Network (MDMN)
The Manchester Digital Media Network brings together staff and graduate students working on digital media, information communication technologies, or Internet cultures across different Schools and Faculties of the University. Our main aim is to create a point of contact between researchers and postgraduate students working across different departments and research centres, who are often unaware of each other’s work; to exchange ideas and share research experience; and to promote future research collaboration between University staff. Our activities consist of several postgraduate sessions and one research workshop a year. In addition, members of the network organise affiliated activities in their own departments.
Below are details of our past and future events. If you would like to receive further information or join the network, please contact the network co-ordinator, Dr Adi Kuntsman, at adi[.]Kuntsman[@]manchester[.]ac[.]uk .
For further information on postgraduate activities please contact our PG coordinator, Ashley Brown, at Ashley[.]Brown[@]postgrad[.]manchester[.]ac[.]uk
Events 2011-2012
no events currently scheduled.
Past Events
Events 2011-2012
MDMN received funding from methods@manchester to develop our methods-related research and training activities in 2011-12.
Workshop 1: Ethics of Internet Research
Monday 21 November 2011, 9:30am-5pm. Full details including materials and presentations .
We recorded materials and presentations from this event.
Workshop 2: Methods and Challenges of Researching Social Networking Sites
Tuesday 20 March, 9:30am - 5pm. Full details including materials and presentations.
Events 2010-2011
Postgraduate Sessions on Work in Progress:
Session 1, 16 November 2010, Arthur Lewis Building, Room 4.031. Presenters: Ashley Brown, Paul Hepburn and Ben Lee.
Session 2, 1 March 2011, 1:30-3:30, University Place, room 3.212. Presenters: Catherine Goodfellow and Adela Fofiu. Click here to see abstracts of their presentations.
Research workshop on working with digital archives
17 March 2011, 3-6pm, University Place 4,211.
Speakers: Stephen Hutchings (Centre of Russian and East European Studies, SLLC); Adi Kuntsman (RICC/Anthropology, SoSS); Sally Olding (The Whitworth Art Gallery); Helene Snee, Sociology, SoSS); Carmel Dickinson (Manchester Informatics); Rachel Gibson (IPEG/SoSS).
This half-day workshop explores technical, methodological and cultural issues associated with increasing use of digital data and in particular, digital archives, in academic research. Full programme.
If you are interested in attending, please email Adi Kuntsman.
Events 2009-2010
3-4 June 2010 Affective Fabrics of Digital Cultures: Feelings, Technologies, Politics: an international two-day conference
2 March 2010, 9am-1:30 pm, Workshop on method(s): challenges of on-line research, Roscoe building, room 1.003.
16 November 2009, 2:30-4:00pm, Postgraduate session: introductory meeting, Arthur Lewis 4.059.
4 November 2009 Play Things: an interdisciplinary postgraduate conference.
Network members
Adi Kuntsman: Research Institute for Cosmopolitan Cultures. Research interests: cybersociality, on-line ethnography, diasporic negotiations on the Internet, hatred and violence in cyberspace.
Project(s) working on: (1)‘An Ethnography of Cyberhate: Internet, Transnationalism and Affect’, a Leverhulme-funded two-year project focusing on the relations between technology, politics, transnationalism and affect by looking at the circulation and the intersections of Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and homophobia on the Russian-language Internet. (2) I am currently acting as guest editor for a special issue of Digital Icons: Studies in Russian, Eurasian, and Central European New Media, entitled ‘War, Conflict and Commemoration in the Age of Digital Reproduction’.
Angella Musiimenta, Doctoral programme Member, Business Systems Division, The University of Manchester.
Anita Greenhill: CRESC and Manchester Business School. Research interests: (1) Culture, conflict and everyday life amongst an online ‘community’ and (2) Digital Culture: New forms of Living and organising. These research interests include studies on gaming cultures, blogs and shopblogs, thanetworks, technology and religious practice (in particular Muslim's).
Ashley Brown: PhD student, in sociology with a focus on videogame studies. Research interests: gender and sexuality, massive multiplayer online role playing games, the internet as an outlet for subversive behaviour, and cyborg studies. Past research has included gender swapping (the act of playing avatars of a different gender to the player's real life gender) in World of Warcraft and an exploration of the permiability of Huizinga's magic circle. Current research focuses on role playing and sexual expression in World of Warcraft and the effect this has on player's real life concepts of sexual activity and identity.
Ben Lee
Brian Callan: MA student, Department of Social Anthropology, SoSS. Research interests: Interrogative visual texts: Construction methodologies for visual representation using collaborative recording, and computational resources for the storage, distribution and dissemination of visual ethnography. The representation of emotion in visual media. Project(s) currently working on: Israeli left-wing movements and the visual representation of the interaction of subjective and social processes.
Carmel Dickinson: Manchester Informatics (Mi). Research interests in: (Mi) covers informatics in its broadest possible sense. It’s about the acquisition, storage, integration, processing, visualization and communication of digital information (so it includes things like computational science including simulation and modelling) but it also covers the impact on individuals, organisations and society. Project(s) currently working on: The MBS Institute for Social Media (Professor Peter Kawalek) is under the Mi umbrella and so is MeRC (formaerly NCeSS) in SoSS. Outsid of Humanities we have people lots of people in Computer Science and EEE working on digital media and (of course) ICT.
Drew Whitworth
Elisa Coati
Elizabeth Burgess: PhD student, Department of English and American Studies, SAHC. My thesis focuses on the relationship between the experience of reading, and the experience of playing. My research interests include computer games, e-reading and online storytelling (including hypertext and fan fictions).
Hannah Knox
Johanna Juselius
Joseph Mcgonagle: Department of French Studies, SLLC. Research interests: Representations of ethnicity in contemporary French and Francophone visual culture, the visual representation of Franco-Algerian relations; ethnicity on French television; use of web technology by online diasporic communities. Current Project: 'France-Algeria: Visualising a (Post) Colonial Relationship' with Dr Ed Welch (Durham); three-year AHRC project.
Julian Hartley: PhD student, Centre for Museology, SAHC. Research interests: Online social networks and curatorial interpretation, cybernetics, self-organisation and social theory. Project(s): As part of my research practice I am currently engaging users of social networks in both the interpretation and dissemination of museum digital content.
Kevin Gillan: Department of Sociology,SoSS. Kevin’s research has been focused on the production and communication of political (or at least normative) ideas within social movements. This inevitably encourages a focus on new media, which is explored in detail in his book, Anti-War Activism: New Media and Protest in the Information Age. Kevin's latest research takes the investigation of normative contest and morally loaded communication into an economic context through studying transnational corporations.
Konstantinos Arvanitis: Centre for Museology, SAHC. Research Interests: digital heritage; theory and practice of digital technology in museums, galleries and heritage sites, including issues of user interaction and participation, multimedia interpretation and digital content curatorship; use of mobile and Web 2.0 media in museums for purposes of curation, interpretation and learning. Project(s): (1) ‘Curators in Residence: Hidden archaeological sites and virtual curating’: this research aims to engage city residents in Greece with the interpretation and presentation of antiquities preserved under modern buildings via the use of digital media; (2) ‘Digital Heritage Research Training Initiative’ (AHRC-Funded; with University of Leicester, Newcastle University, University of Glasgow and The Collections Trust): This project aims to support doctoral students (as well as trainers/supervisors) across the UK, whose research is at the intersection between digital media and cultural heritage, through the designand production of eight research training units on the following topics: Disseminating your research with digital media; Harnessing the digital heritage community as a research resource; Tools for evaluating museum websites; Using social media in digital heritage research; Finding and using digital images; Finding and using heritage databases; Using your mobile phone as a research tool; and Aggregating and organising your digital resources.
Lucy Gibson: Department of Sociology. Research interests: Online popular music cultures, online qualitative research methods, the digitisation of music/music industry and the internet. Project(s) working on: I have recently submitted my PhD thesis entitled: ‘Popular music and the life course: Cultural commitment, lifestyles and identities’. The study employed an ethnographic approach to investigate the experiences of fans aged over thirty in northern and rare soul, rock, and electronic dance music ‘scenes’. Methodologically, the research drew on participant observation, face-to-face and electronic interviews with over seventy fans, web 2.0 data, and secondary sources. The thesis shows that using the internet in qualitative research can produce in-depth and rich data. I am currently working on publications stemming from the thesis that will include journal articles and a book. I have also recently been appointed as an online ‘music from the periphery’ columnist for Popular Anthropology Magazine.
Malcolm Chapman
Marilena Aspioti
Muhammad Shajjad Ahsan:
Ph.D Candidate, Department of Drama. Research interests: Media Production, Screen Acting, Screen Directing, Workforce Education for Media Industry and the Media Policy. Project(s) working on: I am currently writing up my PhD thesis entitled: ‘Integration of Digital Technology in the Film Industry of Bangladesh: Readiness and Response Functions’. The recent developments in digital filmmaking is revolutionising the current methods of film production, distribution and exhibition in global and local arena. This research seeks to understand the impacts of the integration of digital film technology within Bangladesh. A case study method and interview technique was used for data collection. The thesis has hereby used the self efficacy theory, absorptive capacity theory and PESTEL model as a theoretical framework to understand the micro and macro level readiness and response of the film workforce. I am a teacher in the Drama Department from Jahangirnagar University and I am currently on study leave to pursue my Ph.D.
Paul Hepburn: PhD student, Department of Politics/Institute of Political and Economic Governance (IPEG). Research interests: an 'Internet mediated domain of local governance'. I use a case study of how the internet was used during the Manchester Congestion Charge referendum to explore some assumptions associated with post industrial theories of transformation at the local governance level. I use Social Network Analysis and Exponential Random Graph Modelling to assign significance and meaning to an online network. I then use a network ethnography approach to explain online strategies employed by the political and civic actors engaged in the referendum.
Piers Robinson
Rachel Gibson: Institute for Social Change, SoSS. Research interests: parties, elections, campaigning, political participation. Project(s) currently working on: (1) Study of impact of blogs on UK party organizations; (2) Comparative analysis of impact of new ICTs on political campaigning: US, UK, France and Australia (2010-2012).
Sally Olding: The Whitworth Art Gallery. Research interests: Young people online, the digital divide, non-linear narratives, adults with learning disabilities engaging with digital media and the internet, psychogeographical interpretations of online spaces, uses of social media. Project(s): I am currently developing a number of digital and non-digital projects for mintsource, The Whitworth Art Gallery programme of activities for young people. I am also Creative Consultant for Find Your Talent Merseyside’s “creative portfolio” website. http://freehand.fact.co.uk
Sarah Green: Department of Social Anthropology, SoSS. Research interests: Mostly the relationship between ICTs/mobile telephony and space, place, location, borders and boundaries. A secondary interest is the relationship between ICTs/mobile telephony and embodiment, which includes interest in gender and sexuality. Project(s) currently working on: In relation to information technologies, I am the chair of a research network that is, amongst other things, looking into the techniques and technologies of making, maintaining, removing and generating borders – particularly on the eastern peripheries of Europe, but also as a more conceptual issue.
Stephen Hutchings: Centre of Russian and East European Studies, SLLC. Research interests: New/Old Media Convergence; Internet and ‘Civil Society’ in Post-communist Europe; New Media Cultures in post-Soviet Russia. Project(s) currently working on: ‘European Television Representations of Islam as Security Threat: A Comparative Analysis (Britain, France, Russia)’ – 3yr AHRC project
Viktor Leggio, PhD student, Department of Linguistics (SLLC) and Research Institute for Cosmopolitan Cultures.