Gavin Duffy is a sociologist interested in identity formation, social meaning-making and how digital technologies shape our perceptions (and how our perceptions shape these technologies). His doctoral thesis used the circuit of culture model to examine how apps designed for schools were understood across their lifecycle, interviewing app developers, school staff and students about both teaching-and-learning and administrative apps. As a Research Fellow, Gavin will contribute to the Connected node, continuing to work on the ‘Mapping the Political Economy of the Digital Family’ project, as well as working on the ‘Toward Data Justice in Education’ project. Through this work, Gavin hopes to contribute to an understanding of how we can enable young people to use digital technologies as they desire, while ensuring their digital rights are recognised, enforced, and strengthened, rather than subject to an extractive data-driven digital economy.

Earliest digital memory
Seeing my father use Napster to download Johnny Cash and June Carter’s version of Jackson. Incidentally, it is also my earliest memory of Johnny Cash.