Centre for Digital Media Cultures

Welcome to the Centre for Digital Media Cultures

The Centre for Digital Media Cultures (CDMC) brings together researchers and artists who share a common interest in how we co-create the digital world.

Our members understand the value of ‘end-to-end’ engagement whether in the context of digital art, innovation or research. From coding, to digital performance, to data-driven policy and large scale system change, the research centre promotes trans-disciplinary collaboration, critical enquiry and inclusive practice.

Our research and practice intervenes in digital inequalities, actively mobilising creativity and innovation to build inclusive digital futures.

An introduction to the research and knowledge exchange at the Centre for Digital Media Cultures from the Director, Dr Mary Darking.

At the Centre for Digital Media Cultures, our aim is to provide a research home to University of Brighton and visiting scholars who have digital research and practice interests.

Spanning a wide range of domains from art, policy, computer science, social science, health, education and commercial enterprise, CMDC members share a common interest in creating inclusive digital worlds through purposeful intervention in social and digital inequalities.

We support our members to connect and explore their digital work from the earliest stages of developing a practice or research career, to more advanced stages, where the skill of digital research and practice becomes one of learning to engage in and create cross-specialist spaces for collaboration. Our centre members’ work reflects this and the projects we develop are leading examples of collaborative, trans-disciplinary practice.

We inform practice, research and policy through developing key local, national and international partnerships, cutting across community, industry and the public sector.

The centre co-delivered the Digital Catapult Centre Brighton, including the 5G Brighton project, the Dat Research *& Innovation Laboratory and the Digital Research & Innovation Value Accelerator (DRIVA Arts DRIVA projects) with Gatwick Airport. Arts DRIVA ensured artists and cultural producers participated alongside designers, businesses and technologists, to create new products and experiences utilising a live data feed out of a working airport. This positions us as a key stakeholder in the region for specialist knowledge transfer in Creative Digital and IT (CDIT). It also places us at the heart of the local SME innovation eco-system for next generation digital products and services. Building on the legacy of the DRIVA project, the centre is a lead partner in the implementation of a matching engine for creatives, technologists and businesses interested in data-driven innovation.

Alongside our shared interest in inclusive digital practice and digital inequalities our centre has research themes around which we coordinate our conversations and events. These include: smart infrastructure; networked collaborative practice and 5G; public understanding of Artificial Intelligence; and digital health and wellbeing. Find out more about our research and knowledge exchange work at the Centre for Digital Media Cultures on our 'What we do' pages .

We welcome new collaborators at all career stages. We provide supervisory support for PhD candidates with digital research and practice interests and host international visiting researchers.

Dr Mary Darking

What we do

Our interdisciplinary research centre addresses the increasingly complex ways through which society engages with its digital media cultures.

The research centre brings together artists, computer scientists, social scientists and designers, drawing on the expertise of researchers who study technology from policy and social science perspectives, and others who make digital art and design technologies.

Research fields include digital and data practices within healthcare environments, digital media art practices, digital communication hub developments, online community building, digital systems design and digitally-based cultural delivery and development.

We work with a community of dedicated academics, practitioners and PhD postgraduate research students, many of whom draw on their expanding networks of industry and cultural partners, across the City of Brighton and Hove, the United Kingdom and beyond.

Join us for study, work or visit

Our research centre is always actively seeking collaborators and partners in industry and academia. We welcome the opportunity to work with postgraduate students, visiting researchers and external organisations.

• Find out more about studying for your PhD in digital media cultures, including funding opportunities, research career development and our current postgraduate researchers.
• Discover more about opportunities to join us as a visiting researcher, becoming an associate member, collaborating with your organisation, or using our services and facilities.
• Keep in touch with us through digital media.
• We also look forward to hearing from University of Brighton staff researching in this area who are not yet members of the centre.

Our research areas at the Centre for Digital Media Cultures

Our interdisciplinary centre promotes digital inclusion as a driver for innovation informed by ethical, creative practice and positive social change. Theoretical, practical and artistic explorations address questions of digital inclusion with respect to six key issues:

• Smart Infrastructure: Cities, transport, housing and energy
• Public understanding of Artificial Intelligence
• Networked collaborative practice and 5G
• Digital health and wellbeing
• Digital inequalities: inclusive innovation
• Digital teaching and learning

Smart Infrastructure: Cities, transport, housing and energy

Digital is seen as key to creating new knowledge and driving innovation.

Researchers from the Centre for Digital Media Cultures facilitate community building to enhance socio-cultural inclusion and to influence public policy, providing recommendations to enhance second language and cultural acquisition using mobile and ubiquitous computing.

We release software and data resources to be used by other researchers and developers whilst also facilitating community building to enhance socio-cultural inclusion and to influence public policy.

The Centre for Digital Media Cultures contributes Natural Language Processing expertise to COST Action IC1307, the European Network on Integrating Vision and Language (iV&L Net), which brings together two previously unconnected research communities, Computer Vision (CV) and Natural Language Processing (NLP).

Digital artists Paul Sermon and Charlotte Gould installed the thematic work People's Screen in Guangzhou, China.

Research into public understanding of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Our centre researchers look into the development and implementation of machine learning and artificial intelligence solutions and their ethical consequences

We welcome collaborators and potential beneficiaries of our research into the ways artificial intelligence is mediated and understood and would like to hear approaches for PhD study in this area of digital media research.

Networked collaborative practice and 5G research

Digital technology is present in all aspects of our lives, whether we actively engage with it or not. Our research into changes in technical applications, standards, methods, policies and infrastructures looks at how those elements impact on humanity, and in particular how the public can be empowered to crowd and community source projects and share related models, platforms and tools.

Harnessing open-source software and sharing best practice, enables further research on improving the efficiency and journey for user-generated content, as well as how human computer interaction can develop a smooth understanding through search engines visual searchability.

Research has included:

• shaping new ways to encourage and sustain volunteer engagement in the area of complex game-based crowdsourcing and validation of contributed content.
• engaging people in local history through locative media and advances in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) including eye-tracking technology in order to provide insights for global implementations of search engines.
• work with the Digital Catapult Centre Brighton to support Innovation, SMEs and start ups. Leading the Immersive Lab, which provides businesses with support accessing and working with state-of-the-art VR/AR facilities, and the 5G testbed, which enables SMEs to generate use cases that benefit from 5G connectivity.

Brighton has unearthed the rules of engagement for audiences and the complexities surrounding the evolution of the specific formula that play on the on the narrative spatialisation, exploring how these configurations shaped the audience behaviour.

Researchers have also brought an understanding of the role of networked technologies within disadvantaged communities and new practices in museum-based technologies for exhibition and visitor feedback.

Our achievements in this aspect of our digital media cultures research include:

• Collaborative Solutions for the Performing Arts: A Telepresence Stage
• Arts DRIVA (Creative local fund growth)
• Out of sight, out of mind: a telematic installation.

We include among our collaborators and partners:

• Wired Sussex
• Brighton and Hove City Council
• Lighthouse Arts, Brighton
• Brighton and Hove Museums and Art Gallery
• Brighton Festival

We welcome collaborators and potential beneficiaries of our research into the use, value and reception of digital media in arts and exhibition practices and would like to hear approaches for PhD study in this area of digital media research.

Digital health and wellbeing research

The digital age has empowered people to engage in society, politics and government through effective participation by harnessing information technology. This research theme brings researchers together to examine issues of digital citizenship, smart cities, ethics and the use of digital in health and wellbeing.

A primary field of influence is our contribution to the development and evaluation of new digitally-enhanced care pathways, with notable work enhancing the opportunities for self-management amongst HIV patients. Former projects have included data gathering projects for eco-friendly transport.

Our achievements in this aspect of our digital media cultures research include:

• EmERGE: Evaluating mHealth technology in HIV to improve empowerment and healthcare utilisation
• Creative and Industry Approaches to Mobility in the Age of the Internet of Things, Blockchain and Data (CIAM)
• ART/ DATA/ HEALTH Data as a creative material for health and wellbeing

We include among our research partners:

• Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust
• European AIDS Treatment Group
• Klinica Za Infektivne Bolesti, Dr. Fran Mihaljevic

We welcome collaborators and potential beneficiaries of our research into the use of digital media for social, political and cultural change and would like to hear approaches for PhD study in this area of digital media research.

Research into digital inequalities and inclusive innovation

Our work in this area includes:

• Data ethics, inclusive innovation and improving access to care in digital health and wellbeing.
• Changes in technical applications, infrastructure, standards, methods, policies and infrastructures, including data science, data literacy and design guidelines.
• Changes in the arts and creative practice and content, including serious gaming, user experiences and interaction, as well as new modes of audience engagement.

We welcome collaborators and potential beneficiaries of our research into the ways digital systems highlight inequalities or improve inclusivity and would like to hear approaches for PhD study in this area of digital media research.

Research into digital teaching and learning

Our research at the centre considers digital inequalities, inclusion and accessibility in education, youth work and learning.

We welcome collaborators and potential beneficiaries of our research into the use, value and reception of digital media in arts and exhibition practices and would like to hear approaches for PhD study in this area of digital media research.

Our research and enterprise impact

Our researchers work across digital industry-based client groups, healthcare and diverse arts audiences. Their work makes positive changes to the ways communities interact through and with their digital environments and brings an understanding of technology to numerous social and cultural areas of society.

Who we are

The Centre for Digital Media Cultures has permanent staff and postgraduate student members.

We have a balance between established academics, early career and mid-career researchers as well as our fully-integrated postgraduate student members, supervised by the centre's staff members.

We have strong records for publishing both journal and conference papers, securing research grants, impactful partnerships and work with public bodies.

Your PhD at the University of Brighton will develop your professional skills as a researcher in your chosen discipline, and enable you to make your original contribution to knowledge, working alongside dedicated academics in a vibrant, supportive community.

The University of Brighton has a rich scholarly history, particularly in applied research. We pride ourselves on academic work that has a major public impact, on our innovative approaches to the generation and dissemination of knowledge, and our part in the progress of new and under-represented disciplines.

We have an enviable record of preparing students for their place in the wider world. Our PhD students benefit from an approach that recognises the value of rigorous research study and the transferable, high-level skillsets that are developed in the work towards a PhD thesis. We also offer our students the benefit of our strong connections to regional, national and international research networks, industry, public services and professional associations.

Our supportive environment will place you with an expert supervisory team, typically of two supervisors, and will embed your work within the research of specialist departments. Most students are introduced as members of several research communities; you will be based within a specialist disciplinary school and within focused research groups and/or Centres of Research and Enterprise Excellence (COREs). You'll also have opportunities to join students across the university through our Doctoral College and its training programmes.

We recognise doctoral research as the lifeblood of all universities; we welcome our PhD students as the next generation of researchers and scholars, who will continue the mission to generate new knowledge and address the global challenges that face us all.