Qualifications

• MSc in Sociological Research Methods (University of Surrey)
• PhD (University of Surrey)

Research Interests

My research interests relate to  intersections between technology, culture and everyday life.

I am currently working on a project studying the ways in which we "detox" ourselves from social media and the processes and meanings of disconnecting from digital culture.

I am also working on how we can understand digital leisure, in particular blogging and vlogging. This work currently focuses on the ways in which Motherhood is articulated represented and resisted online.

• Digital Sociology
• Digtal culture
• Internet research & Innovative/online methodologies
• Ethics & practicalities of ICTs as research tools & research sites
• Cultures of learning & e-learning
• Online leisure and technological mediations of leisure practices
• Intersections of 'real' & 'virtual'
• Sociology of (online) humour

I am also a QSR trainer and consultant for NVivo CAQDAS software. 

Current PhD supervision:

Esje Stapleton: Postructuralist and Extended Mind Philosophy

Yi-Tao Lee: Blogging and Online fatherhood

Recently Completed PhD supervision:

Aliette Lambert: Materiality and identity confusion:An inquiry into the lived consumption experience of female emerging adults

Madeline Breeze: Gender identities, sport and roller derby

Kirsti McGregor: Gender and web 2.0

Sam Friedman: Festival culture and humour 

Lucy Nicholas: Poststructuralist gender identity in Queer e-perzines and blogs, 

Götz Harald Frommholz :The Labour Market Perspectives of The Kitchen-Furniture Industry in East Westphalia 

Liapeng Matsau: Higher Education in South Africa

Orlando Villalbos: Politics of Production of Culture: Developing Independent Games 

Recent Publications

(2017) Mummy Blogs and Representations of Motherhood: “Bad Mummies” and Their Readers  Social Media + Society  Volume: 3 issue: 2 [Available here]

(2016)  Digitally mediated motherhood in Basden Arnold, L. (Eds) Taking the Village Online: Mothers, Motherhood, and Social Media Demeter Press Bradford ON [Available here]

(2015) Orton-Johnson, K., Prior, N. and Gregory, K. "Sociological Imagination: Digital Sociology and the Future of the Discipline." Special Section on Digital Sociology. The Sociological Review. 

(2014) Rethinking Community? Facebook as a learning backchannel. In, Kent, M. & Leaver, T (Eds.) An Education in Facebook? HIgher Education and the Worlds Largest Social Network. Routledge, London [Available here]

(2014) DIY citizenship, critical making and community. In Ratto, M. & Boler, M. (Ed.)  DIY citizenship MIT press, Massachusetts [Available here] [Brian Loader's review of the book and of my chapter is available here]

(2014) Knit, purl, upload: digital mediations of craft Leisure Studies  Volume 33, Issue 3, [2012 online early edition available here] (Selected for the Editor’s Virtual Special Issue for Leisure Studies)

(2013) Digital Sociology: Critical Perspectives  Palgrave Macmillan, London (edited with Prior, N.) [Available here]

(2013) Mediating the Digital (with Prior, N.) In Digital Sociology: Critical Perspectives  Palgrave Macmillan, London (edited with Prior, N.) 

(2011) Social research methods and open educational resources [available here] (with Fairweather, I.) C-SAP (Higher Education Academy's Centre for Sociology, Anthropology and Politics) Discovering Collections of Social Science Open Educational Resources.

(2010)  Ethics in online research; evaluating the ESRC Framework for Research Ethics categorisation of risk. Sociological Research Online 14(4) 

(2009) 'I've stuck to the path I'm afraid' Exploring student non-use of blended learning. The British Journal of Educational Technology. Volume 40, Number 5, pp 837-847 (11) 

(2008) 'Give me a website and I'll wipe out a rainforest'. Student constructions of Technology and learning. The International Journal of Learning. Volume 14 Issue 12 pp 161-166

(2007) The Online Student: Lurking, Chatting, Flaming and Joking. Sociological Research Online (shortlisted for the 2008 Sage Prize for Innovation and Excellence) 12(6)

(2006) 'Using the Internet' (with Wakeford, N. and Jungnickel, K.) in Gilbert, N. (ed) From Postgraduate to Social Scientist: A Guide to Key Skills. Sage, London

PhD in Sociology