How does digital technology impact information and its preservation over time? How do digital technology choices impact our ability to access and act on past information? In my research, I answer these questions by examining interactions between platforms, formal information repositories, and everyday cultural memory. My work grapples with problems of digital cultural memory preservation in a world of dynamic digital infrastructures and complex political and economic forces. Software-driven platforms are crucial infrastructure in our society that collect data, manage it, and provide access to data collections. Firms that own these data collections are not typically in the business of preserving cultural memory, but that is precisely the role they end up playing. As my research investigates the changing culture and ownership of information infrastructures and archival processes, it demonstrates that the power of private platforms is growing not just in how data is collected but how data is managed and made accessible or inaccessible over time.
My research is interdisciplinary, inductive, qualitative and quantitative. I participate in a number of small group, multi-sited collaborations and carry out individual research investigations. Some of the themes that cut across my current projects are the representation of data, preservation and loss of digital traces, infrastructures, and the transmission of information through time.
If you would like more information about my work, a quote, or pre-prints related to my projects, please email me.
