I often receive messages from students who are interested in the fuzzy and interdisciplinary world of Critical Data Studies (aka Critical Algorithms Studies, Digital Media Studies, Critical Platform Studies, Digital STS, and many related terms). This is a non-exhaustive list of public-facing resources that I often share. Many of these places have newsletters, so I encourage students to sign up.
I also selfishly recommend subscribing to Signal/Noise, the newsletter of the Stanford Digital Civil Society Lab, where I’m faculty director. We try to feature relevant research and events (usually hybrid).
- Centers and Institutes
Algorithmenetik (Gütersloh)
Algorithmic Fairness and Opacity Group (Berkeley)
Bristol Digital Futures Institute (Bristol)
Center for Applied Data Ethics (USF)
Center for Ethics, Society, and Computing (Michigan)
Center on Digital Culture and Society (Penn Annenberg)
Centre for Digital Cultures (Leuphana)
CRISP (Center for Research Into Information, Surveillance, and Privacy)
Data Justice Lab (Cardiff)
Data & Society Research Institute
Digilabour (UNISINOS)
Digital Civil Society Lab (Stanford)
Digital Democracies Institute (SFU)
DipLab (Digital Labor Platform)
Edinburgh Futures Institute (Edinburgh)
HIIG (Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society)
Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab (Princeton)
Institute for Public Knowledge: “Co-Opting AI” (NYU)
Lavits (Rede Latino-Americana de Estudos Sobre Vigilância, Tecnologia e Sociedade)
MASTS (Media as SocioTechnical Systems) (USC Annenberg)
Médialab (Sciences Po)
LSE Digital Ethnography Collective (LSE)
Markkula Center for Applied Ethics (Santa Clara)
Oxford Internet Institute (Oxford)
Social Media Collective (Microsoft Research New England)
Surveillance Studies Centre (Queen’s University)
The Engine Room (Berlin)
UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (UCLA)
- Reading Lists, Syllabi, Lexicons
Critical Algorithms Studies Reading List (h/t Tarleton Gillespie and Nick Seaver)
Critical Data Science Zotero (h/t Katja Mayer and Momin M. Malik)
Digital Ethnography Reading List (h/t Zoë Glatt)
Critical Race and Digital Studies Syllabus (h/t Lori Kido Lopez & Jackie Land)
A New AI Lexicon (AI Now)
Tech Ethics Curricula (h/t Casey Fiesler)
My Politics of Algorithms Syllabus
- Slack channel (with CFPs)
Sociologists of Digital Things (you can sign up on the website) (h/t Matt Rafalow)
- Conferences and sections
Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR)
ASA, especially CITAMS (Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology)
ICA, especially CAT (Communication and Technology) and Philosophy, Theory, and Critique
- (Kind of) Specialized academic journals, magazines, and proceedings
Information, Communication, & Society
And then a LOT of other options depending on the discipline: in Communication (International Journal of Communication, Journal of Communication, First Monday), Sociology (ASR, AJS, Work & Occupations, Theory & Society, Poetics), Management (Organization Science, ASQ), STS (Science, Technology, & Human Values, Social Studies of Science), Information Science (The Information Society), Policy (Internet Policy Review), Law, ACM proceedings…
- Journalists covering tech
Again, not an exhaustive list, nor an endorsement:
Julia Alexander
Julia Angwin
Joe Bernstein
Cory Doctorow
Sidney Fussell
Karen Hao
Khari Johnson
Taylor Lorenz
Farhad Manjoo
Cade Medz
Moise Mendez II
Shira Ovide
Kara Swisher
Ben Tarnoff
Nitasha Tiku
Charlie Warzel
Shoshana Wodinsky