Dr James Allen-Robertson
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Email
jallenh@essex.ac.uk -
Telephone
+44 (0) 1206 872273
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Location
6.330, Colchester Campus
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Academic support hours
Autumn 2021/22 Typically Wednesday & Friday 11:00-12:00 See Moodle for Details
Profile
Biography
Digital Sociologist and Computational Social Scientist interested in the relationship between humans and technology, radical online cultures, and in the development of new digital methods using data science. Designer and convenor of our BSc Sociology with Data Science, I teach sociologists how to program for research and social good. I am also the author of Sage Campus' course on 'Collecting Social Media Data' and frequently run workshops on Web Scraping for Social Research. I collaborate with a host of great academics, and have published on topics such as the history of digital piracy, the visual sociology of environmental protest online, the materiality of digital media and medical misinformation. In many of these collaborations I generate and work with large scale datasets deploying network analysis, text analysis , data visualisation and machine learning. My current substantive projects are mapping and studying radical far-right tech cultures; unearthing global trends in human rights violations using network analysis; and using text mining to explore tech industry responses to surveillance policy.
Qualifications
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BA Sociology (2007)
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MA Social Research Methods (2008)
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PhD - Digital Culture Industry (2011)
Research and professional activities
Research interests
Algorithmic Power
Web Scraping
Text Mining
Digital Cultures
Software Studies
Hacker Subcultures
The Dark Web
Science and Technology Studies
Computational Social Science
Current research
The Networks of Business and Human Rights
Mapping the relationships between business sectors and human rights violations. The project utilises data provided by Business and Human Rights Resource Centre. Collaboration with Dr. Nicole Janz, University of Nottingham.
Computational Method: Visual Object Detection for Large Scale Social Media Analysis
Whilst social media data is routinely used for social science research, often users communicate through visual as well as textual material. Making this visual material interpretable by researchers at scales beyond manual coding is a key issue for future social science work. This project, funded by the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust aims to develop processes for utilising pre-trained neural networks for object detection in images, to make their contents more immediately accessible at scale for researchers.
Gig Economy Discourses
Utilising large scale semantic models of text to explore discourses within the gig economy, particularly in relation to algorithmic power and sexual assault.
Topic Modelling the Investigatory Powers Act
How did key stakeholders in the UK Investigatory Powers Bill Consultation frame their position to new state surveillance powers? Utilising computational topic modelling of the written submissions this project extracts and demonstrates the key topics expressed by different types of stakeholders and illuminates how they framed their interests.
Conferences and presentations
Medical misinformation and social harm in non-science-based health practices
EUROCRIM 2019, Ghent 18-21 September 2019, Ghent, Belgium, 20/9/2019
Encrypting Human Rights: The intertwining of voices in the UK state surveillance debate
International Conference in Ideology and Discourse Analysis 2019, Colchester, United Kingdom, 31/5/2019
Encrypting Human Rights: The Intertwining of voices in the UK state surveillance debate
International Conference in Ideology and Discourse Analysis, Colchester, United Kingdom, 31/5/2019
What can Data Scientists Learn from Social Scientists?
Invited presentation, Interdisciplinary Alchemy: Data Science + Social Science, London, United Kingdom, 7/11/2018
The Uber Game: Exploring the User/Algorithm Relationship through new Computational Methods
Digital Cultures: Knowledge | Culture | Technology, Lüneburg, Germany, 21/9/2018
Activism against medicine on social media: untangling the #novax protest on Twitter
18th Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 31/8/2018
Computational Social Science
Invited presentation, National Centre for Research Methods Festival, Bath, United Kingdom, 5/7/2018
Representing environmental harm and resistance on Twitter: The case of the TAP pipeline in Italy
Global Issues, Cultural Perspectives, Utrecht, Netherlands, 29/6/2018
The Uber Game: Exploring Algorithmic Managment and Resistance
Networked Publics: Association of Internet Researchers 2017, Tartu, Estonia, 21/10/2017
Representing environmental harm and resistance on Twitter: The case of the TAP pipeline in Italy
Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology, Cardiff, United Kingdom, 18/9/2017
October 2015 - ' The Materiality of Digital Media' presented at the Association of Internet Researchers (AOIR) Annual Conference (IR16), Phoenix Arizona - USA
Pheonix, United States, 2015
June 2014 - 'Music Mashups: Creative Consumption and Cultures of Constant Reference', presented at 'Creating Cultures', Kings College London
London, United Kingdom, 2014
November 2013 - 'Competing with Free: Lessons from the History of Digital Distribution', presented at 'Online Cultural Consumers and Museums Symposium'. Kings College London
London, United Kingdom, 2013
September 2011 - Internet Archives & Documentary Analysis, presented at A Decade in Internet Time: Symposium on the Dynamics of the Internet and Society.The Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford.
Oxford, United Kingdom, 2011
Teaching and supervision
Current teaching responsibilities
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Media, Culture and Society (SC106)
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Introduction to Social Data Science (SC207)
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Digital Society (SC224)
Previous supervision
Degree subject: Sociology
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 26/9/2022
Degree subject: Sociology
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 3/11/2020
Degree subject: Sociology
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 18/8/2020
Degree subject: Sociology
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 16/4/2020
Degree subject: Sociology
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 24/6/2019
Publications
Journal articles (9)
Romer, J., Allen-Robertson, J. and Kroo, J., Theorizing Political Alignment in Neoreactionary Twitter Communities: A Computational Sociological and Discourse Analytic Approach. Social Media + Society
Di Ronco, A. and Allen-Robertson, J., (2021). Representations of environmental protest on the ground and in the cloud: The NOTAP protests in activist practice and social visual media. Crime, Media, Culture. 0 (3), 375-399
Janz, N., Allen-Robertson, J., Hertel, S. and Majumdar, R., (2021). Big Data on BHR: Innovative Approaches to Analyzing the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre Database. Business and Human Rights Journal. 6 (1), 120-126
Stevens, A. and Allen-Robertson, J., (2021). Encrypting Human Rights: The intertwining of resistant voices in the UK state surveillance debate. Big Data and Society. 8 (1), 205395172098530-205395172098530
JANZ, N., ALLEN-ROBERTSON, J., MAJUMDAR, R. and HERTEL, S., (2021). Big Data on BHR: Innovative Approaches to Analysing the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre Database – ERRATUM. Business and Human Rights Journal. 6 (1), 178-178
Di Ronco, A., Allen-Robertson, J. and South, N., (2019). Representing environmental harm and resistance on Twitter: The case of the TAP pipeline. Crime, Media, Culture. 15 (1), 143-168
Allen-Robertson, J., (2018). Critically assessing digital documents: materiality and the interpretative role of software. Information, Communication and Society. 21 (11), 1732-1746
Allen-Robertson, J., (2017). The materiality of digital media: The hard disk drive, phonograph, magnetic tape and optical media in technical close-up. New Media and Society. 19 (3), 455-470
Allen‐Robertson, J. and Beer, D., (2010). Mobile Ideas: Tracking a Concept through Time and Space. Mobilities. 5 (4), 529-545
Books (1)
Allen-Robertson, J., (2013). Digital Culture Industry. Palgrave Macmillan UK. 9781349441501
Book chapters (1)
Di Ronco, A. and Allen-Robertson, J., (2019). Activism against medicine on social media: untangling the #novax protest in Italy on Twitter. In: Medical Misinformation and Social Harm in Non-Science Based Health Practices A Multidisciplinary Perspective. Editors: Lavorgna, A. and Di Ronco, A., . Routledge. 9781138388666
Reports and Papers (1)
Hermansson, P., Allen-Robertson, J. and Ahmad, M., (2023). Making Space for Hate: Identifying Radicalisers in Far-Right Chat Groups on Telegram
Other (1)
Allen-Robertson, J., Software: Twitter media Downloader with Gephi Support
Grants and funding
2020
Deciphering Violence: New Network Analytic Tools to Improve Hate Speech Detection Online
Independent Social Research Foundation
2018
The representation of environmental protest Online and Offline
British Academy
2015
Human Rights and Information Technology in the Era of Big Data
Economic & Social Research Council
Contact
Academic support hours:
Autumn 2021/22 Typically Wednesday & Friday 11:00-12:00 See Moodle for Details
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