Critical Information Studies Group

The aim of the Critical Information Studies (CIS) research group is to interrogate various informational and related phenomena such as algorithms, big data, AI, machine learning, the Internet of Things (IoT), internet governance, ICT4D, HCI, and the digital divide from a range of ‘critical’ perspectives – phenomenology, hermeneutics, political economy, political ecology, political theology, critical legal studies, ethics, feminism, critical race theory, postcolonial/decolonial studies etc. We seek to facilitate an understanding of how information and related phenomena are conceptualised and discursively articulated, and where relevant, designed, built, diffused into the environment and deployed by different groups, and to explore the nature of power relationships between them.

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
• Studies of religious phenomena through an informational lens - and vice versa
• 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
• Sociotechnical systems modelling and complex systems
• Community-based uses and appropriations of technologies for teaching and learning
• Information retrieval, natural language processing, and the digital humanities
• Gender and technology

CIS is based in the Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) at The Open University in Milton Keynes, UK (although we work closely with colleagues from other parts of the university).