Dr Tim Highfield
BA (Hons), PhD
Department of Sociological Studies
Lecturer in Digital Media and Society
(He/him)
+44 114 222 6447
Full contact details
Department of Sociological Studies
The Wave
2 Whitham Road
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S10 2AH
- Profile
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Tim joined the Department in September 2019 from the University of Amsterdam, where he was Assistant Professor in New Media and Digital Culture (2018-19).
He was previously Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow (2015-18) at Queensland University of Technology, where he also completed his PhD in 2011. Tim is also Secretary for the Visual Communication Studies division of the International Communication Association (2018-2020).
- Research interests
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Tim's research examines critical cultural implications of social and digital media within everyday life. His work focuses in particular on digital cultures and practices with regards to visual, temporal, and political perspectives.
His current research projects include Digital Time, exploring the temporal interventions and applications of digital platforms, and Visual Cultures of Social Media, examining the role of visual content within everyday social media contexts.
His current collaborative research includes the Australian Research Council-funded project Digital Media, Location Awareness, and the Politics of Geodata (with Peta Mitchell, Larissa Hjorth, Agnieszka Leszczynski, and Paul Dourish; 2018-2020), and the forthcoming book Instagram: Visual Social Media Cultures (with Tama Leaver and Crystal Abidin, Polity, 2019).
Research areas
- Digital methods
- Visual social media
- Politics and/of digital media
- Time and digital media
- Everyday digital cultures
- Digital media platforms and their cultural and political interventions
- Publications
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Books
- Instagram Visual Social Media Cultures. John Wiley & Sons.
- Social Media and Everyday Politics. Polity.
Journal articles
- .
- . First Monday, 23(9).
- . Media International Australia, 166(1), 6-10.
- . Information, Communication & Society, 21(1), 30-45.
- . Social Media + Society, 3(3).
- Mediated geographies of everyday life: Navigating the ambient, augmented, and algorithmic geographies of geomedia. Ctrl-Z: new media philosophy, 7.
- . New Media & Society, 18(9), 2028-2045.
- . Communication Research and Practice, 2(1), 47-62.
- . Fibreculture(26), 137-159.
- Tweeted joke life spans and appropriated punch lines: Practices around topical humor on social media. International Journal of Communication, 9(1), 2713-2734.
- . American Behavioral Scientist, 57(7), 871-898.
- . Information, Communication & Society, 16(5), 667-691.
- . Information, Communication & Society, 16(3), 315-339.
- . International Journal of Electronic Governance, 6(4), 342-342.
- . Journal of Technology in Human Services, 30(3-4), 204-218.
- . Media International Australia, 143(1), 89-98.
- . Social Science Computer Review, 29(3), 340-353.
- . Social Science Computer Review, 29(3), 277-287.
- . Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies.
- . First Monday.
- . First Monday, 19(3).
Chapters
- Visual social media In Hanusch F & Vos T (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Journalism Studies John Wiley & Sons
- Social TV and depictions of community on social media: Instagram and Eurovision fandom In Messaris P & Humphreys L (Ed.), Digital Media: Transformations in Human Communication (pp. 156-165). Peter Lang
- In Goggin G & McLelland M (Ed.), Routledge Companion to Global Internet Histories (pp. 331-342). Routledge
- , Die US-Präsidentschaftswahl 2012 (pp. 425-442). Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden
- In Bruns A, Skogerbø E, Christensen C, Larsson AO & Enli G (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Social Media and Politics (pp. 56-73). Routledge
- , The Routledge Companion to Social Media and Politics (pp. 338-350).
- Mapping Movements: Social media research and big data - Critiques and alternatives In Elmer G, Langlois G & Redden J (Ed.), Compromised data? (pp. 173-201). Bloomsbury
- In Arthur PL & Bode K (Ed.), Advancing Digital Humanities: Research, Methods, Theories (pp. 113-129). Palgrave Macmillan
- Following the yellow jersey: Tweeting the Tour de France In Weller K, Bruns A, Burgess J, Mahrt M & Puschmann C (Ed.), Twitter and Society (pp. 249-261). Peter Lang
- In McCaughey M (Ed.), Cyberactivism on the participatory web (pp. 86-116). Routledge
- , Social Media and the Politics of Reportage: The 'Arab Spring' (pp. 33-55).
- Sharing the News: Dissemination of Links to Australian News Sites on Twitter In Gordon J, Rowinski P & Stewart G (Ed.), Br(e)aking the News: Journalism, Politics and New Media (pp. 181-209). Peter Lang
- Blogs, Twitter, and Breaking News: The Produsage of Citizen Journalism In Lind RA (Ed.), Produsing Theory in a Digital World: The Intersection of Audiences and Production (pp. 15-32). Peter Lang
- (pp. 325-339). Edward Elgar Publishing
- , Advancing Digital Humanities Palgrave Macmillan
- , Social Media and the Politics of Reportage Palgrave Macmillan
- Blended Data: Critiquing and Complementing Social Media Datasets, Big and Small In Hunsinger J, Klastrup L & Allen MM (Ed.), Second International Handbook of Internet Research Springer
Working papers
- The possibilities of 'good' generative AI in the cultural and creative industries. Proceedings of the British Academy.
- Instagram Visual Social Media Cultures. John Wiley & Sons.
- Grants
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- 2018-20 Australian Research Council Discovery grant (DP180100174): Digital Media, Location Awareness and the Politics of Geodata
- 2014-15 Australian Research Council Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) grant: TrISMA: Tracking Infrastructure for Social Media Analysis
- Teaching activities
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- Digital Methods
- Advanced Social Media Research
Links