Simeon J. Yates (PhD, Open University UK, 1993) is Professor of Digital Culture and Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor Research Environment and Postgraduate Research at University of Liverpool. His research on the social, political, and cultural impacts of digital media includes a long-standing focus on digital media and interpersonal interaction. More recently, he has worked on projects that address issues of digital inclusion and exclusion. He was seconded to the UK Government’s Department of Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) in 2017 to act as research lead for the Digital Culture team. He remains the joint-chair of the DCMS Research Working Group on Digital Skills and Inclusion. His prior work covered topics such as the use of digital technologies in the workplace, digital media use during crises, and ICT use by the security services. The majority of his research has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), EU, and industry. Simeon’s work has often been interdisciplinary and has predominantly involved creative and digital industry partners. He led on a major Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) funded interdisciplinary program (Engineering for Life) while at Sheffield Hallam. Simeon has been researching the impacts of the internet and digital media on language and culture since 1990. His PhD thesis (1993) is a large-scale linguistic comparison of speech, writing, and online interaction. Subsequent published work has covered analyses of gender differences in computer-mediated communication (CMC), gender and computer gaming, email and letter writing, and science in the mass media. Simeon has written text books on social research methods—in particular, linguistic and discourse analytic methods. https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/communication-and-media/staff/simeon-yates/

Leanne Townsend is a Senior Social Scientist working within the Social, Economic, and Geographical Sciences Group at the James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen, Scotland. Leanne leads research on a number of projects exploring digitization and innovation in various rural contexts, including agriculture, rural entrepreneurship, and rural community development.

Monica Whitty is Professor of Human Factors in Cyber Security at the University of Melbourne, Australia and the University of Warwick, WMG, United Kingdom. She is also on the Global Futures committee for cybersecurity for the World Economic Forum. Her research over the last 20 years has focused on the ways individuals behave in cyberspace. Her work, in particular, examines identities created in cyberspace, cyberscams, online security risks, behavior in cyberspace, insider threat, as well as detecting and preventing cybercrimes. Monica is the author of over 100 articles, and five books, the latest being Cyberpsychology: The study of individuals, society and digital technologies (Wiley, 2017, with Garry Young). She is currently leading an interdisciplinary project funded by TIPS (ESPRC) titled, Detecting and Preventing Mass-Marketing Fraud.

Ronald E. Rice (PhD, Stanford University, 1982) is the Arthur N. Rupe Chair in the Social Effects of Mass Communication in the Department of Communication at University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Rice has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate from University of Montreal (2010), an International Communication Association (ICA) Fellow, selected President of the ICA (2006–2007), awarded a Fulbright Award to Finland (2006), and appointed as the Wee Kim Wee Professor at the School of Communication and Information and the Visiting University Professor, both at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore (Augusts 2007–2009 and June 2010). His co-authored or co-edited books include Organizations and unusual routines: A systems analysis of dysfunctional feedback processes (2010); Media ownership: Research and regulation (2008); The Internet and health care: Theory, research and practice (2006); Social consequences of internet use: Access, involvement and interaction (2002); The Internet and health communication (2001); Accessing and browsing information and communication (2001); Public communication campaigns (1981, 1989, 2001, 2012); Research methods and the new media (1988); Managing organizational innovation (1987); And The new media: Communication, research and technology (1984). He has published over 150 refereed journal articles and 70 book chapters. Dr. Rice has conducted research and published widely in communication science, public communication campaigns, computer-mediated communication systems, methodology, organizational and management theory, information systems, information science and bibliometrics, social uses and effects of the Internet, and social networks. http://www.comm.ucsb.edu/people/ronald-e-rice

Elinor Carmi (PhD, Media and Communications Department at Goldsmiths, University of London) is a digital rights advocate, feminist, researcher, and journalist who has been working, writing, and teaching on deviant media, internet standards, feminist-technoscience, sound studies, internet history, and internet governance. Currently, she is a postdoctoral research associate in digital culture and society at Liverpool University (UK), where she works on several ESRC and AHRC projects around digital ways of being, digital inclusion, and digital literacies. In addition to writing her book about spam, she is also working on two special journal issues: One about “sonic publics,” together with Ram Sinnreich for the International Journal of Communication, and the other about (re)designing time, together with Britt Paris, for Theory, Culture & Society.