Director of Graduate Studies, Associate Professor, Senior Research Fellow
Bernie Hogan examines how to capture, represent and think about social networks, especially personal social networks. His work focuses on the role of design in social media, network capture techniques and theories of relationships.
In today’s digital world, identities are shaped through text, images, and data, influencing public perception and personal agency. From social media profiles to AI-generated deepfakes, these representations often emerge without our input, raising concerns about accuracy, authenticity, and ethical data use.
The Researching Identities in Networks Group (RIING), is dedicated to investigating how identities are represented in digital and information spaces. Rather than using network data for classification or prediction, we explore whether individuals recognise themselves in the data collected about them and how this impacts data ethics and scientific insight.
Our research spans multiple domains, including:
Through collaborative projects, reading groups, and grant-funded research, RIING provides a space for scholars to critically engage with digital identity representation. By prioritising ethical data collection and self-perception in research, we aim to shape a future where digital identities are constructed with accuracy, transparency, and individual agency at the forefront.
Director of Graduate Studies, Associate Professor, Senior Research Fellow
Bernie Hogan examines how to capture, represent and think about social networks, especially personal social networks. His work focuses on the role of design in social media, network capture techniques and theories of relationships.
Research Assistant
Mollie Roddan is a Research Assistant with the Researching Identity Networks Group, working on the ESRC-funded ANSWER (Advancing Network Studies with Enhanced Reporting) project.
Research Assistant
Christiane works with Prof Bernie Hogan and the Researching Identity Networks Group on exploring the methodological and usability challenges in shifting from interviews to self-reported social network analysis data.
DPhil Student
Liam is a doctoral student at the Oxford Internet Institute whose research focuses on communities of practice, from hobby and amateur groups to professional networks, which often use digital technologies to organise their knowledge-making activities.
With the introduction of open source AI tools for image generation, communities of practice exist that can generate image models trained on real people. This project explores how such communities develop norms about the appropriate use of a likeness.
