New center
The new Center for Tracking and Society (CTS) will be launched in January 2022 to develop and consolidate emerging interdisciplinary and empirical research about digital tracking.
Digital tracking denotes a concrete practice that is made possible in digital systems: the collection, organization, quantification and analysis of big datasets and multiple types of data. Such data is being amassed and purposed for knowledge production, economic value creation, public administration and other social activities. At the same time, digital tracking of the footprints of individuals raises a range of questions and dilemmas regarding human existence, identity and the good life. CTS advances research on the interplay between digital tracking, existing social structures and the various actors that form future society. The interdisciplinary work at CTS spans media and communication, computer science, digital economy, surveillance, political economy and critical data studies.
CTS establishes an interdisciplinary research environment for empirical and theoretical research about tracking and society, and for the development of digital, data-driven methods as a core element in humanistic and social-scientific research about human communication and culture. CTS will serve as a hub for consolidating collaborations and knowledge exchange with other research units and with societal stakeholders about the operational logics, ideological underpinnings and social implications of digital tracking.
CTS is established through the combined forces of a number of externally funded research projects based at COMM. It comprises 10 faculty members and 15 postdocs and PhD students.
Contact
Associate professor Stine Lomborg, head of the centre.