Dr Wen Ma is joining Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Culture (JOMEC) as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow. She will work on her project “Investigating the Changing Practices of Citizen Journalism and the Future of Democracy in the Datafied Age” for which she was awarded a prestigious ESRC Wales DTP Postdoctoral Fellowship. Wen will be associated with the Data Justice Lab, and we are very happy to welcome her!

The project will build on her PhD research on social media and data scoring, in which she analysed the impacts of the Chinese Social Credit System (SCS) on social media usage and explored possible consequences for the future of social media. In her Postdoc, she will expand this research to case studies in the UK and will look, particularly, at practices of citizen journalism. Wen regards citizen journalism as “an important manifestation of online deliberation, participatory culture, and civic agency, which are vital aspects of democracy. However, data scoring will (…) have significant impact on citizen agency online and implications for the role of digital citizens in democratic societies.”

The project will connect closely with the Lab’s work on the use of data and AI in public services, practices of citizen scoring, and civic initiatives in response to datafication. Wen will work closely with the Lab co-Directors Arne Hintz and Emiliano Treré.