Professor Ben Light

Professor of Digital Media / Associate Dean – Research and Innovation, College of Arts and Social Sciences

• Maxwell 616d
• T: 0161 2955443
• E: b.light@salford.ac.uk
• Twitter: @Doggyb
• SEEK: Research profile

Please email to arrange an appointment

I am also a member of the Communication, Cultural and Media Studies Research Centre and I sit on the University’s Digital Cluster Executive. You can also find versions of me on Facebook and Twitter. I joined the University of Salford in 1999 after working at the University of Manchester. Before working in higher education, I undertook several administrative roles within the UK’s National Health Service and even spent some time as a Health Promotion worker with MESMAC, a sexual health organisation.

My current role mostly centres on Research and Innovation leadership and my own personal research.  However, I do lead the module ‘Digital Culture’ at postgraduate level and supervise postgraduate dissertation projects as necessary.

I’m interested in how people get different kinds of technologies to work for them on an everyday basis. I started out looking at this in the 1990s, generally in the workplace. However, since then I have found that developments outside work have tended to hold my attention more. I still do research about people and work, but given the way life is being played out in many (but not all) parts of the world I think there’s more to do beyond this. My current research agenda centres on analysing the development and use of the Internet - specifically as related to health and wellbeing, engagement, gender and sexuality.

PhD students I currently work alongside include:

• Ben Gust – Social Networking and Public Relations Communication Practices
• Abudullah Magalooth – Gatekeeping, News and Digital Media
• Eileen Wattam – Social Media and Community Empowerment
• Atefeh Bazzaordeh – Social Networking and Public/Private Considerations 

Funded projects I have worked on since 2008 include:

• 2012-2013, Executive, Promoting Cervical Screening in the North West of England – A Digital Media Based Approach, £74,998 (with Ormandy, University of Salford).
• 2012, AHRC, Mutual Recovery for Mental Health and Wellbeing through Creative Practice, Project Development Proposal, £11,174 (with Crawford, Nottingham University).
• 2011-2012, NESTA/AHRC/Arts Council, Applying Social Media Models to Cultural Collections, with MTM London and the Imperial War Museum, £125,141 total funding, Salford Share: £40,641 (with Crawford, Bagnall and Gosling, University of Salford).
• 2011-2012, NESTA/AHRC/Arts Council, Increasing Young People’s Participation at LSO events via Mobile Media, with the London Symphony Orchestra, £94,115 total funding, Salford Share: £26,845 (with Crawford, Bagnall and Gosling, University of Salford).
• 2010-2011 – Department of Health – Collaborative Project with Manchester Lesbian and Gay Foundation – Cervical Screening Education, £103,000 – Salford Share £24,000 (with Ormandy, University of Salford)
• 2010 – An Investigation into the LGBT Staff Experience, Univeristy of Salford HR Department Funded, £6,300.
• 2009-2011 – Economic and Social Research Council Funded Knowledge Transfer Partnership: Brook Advisory, New Media and Health, £120,000 (with Ormandy, University of Salford) Nominated for  Brook National Innovation Award.
• 2009-2011 – Technology Strategy Board Funded Knowledge Transfer Partnership: CETUS Solutions, Web 2.0 Relationship Networking, £137,000 (with Griffiths and Heinze, University of Salford).
• 2009-2011 – Technology Strategy Board Funded Knowledge Transfer Partnership: The Foundry, Point of Sale Product Development, £120,000 (with Fletcher and Kutar, University of Salford).
• 2008-2009 – Arts and Humanities Research Council/ Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Commissioned Research “A Review of Digital Media Infrastructure for the United Kingdom” £11,500 (with Roberts, University of Salford)
• 2008-2010 – Economic and Social Research/Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Funded Knowledge Transfer Partnership: Cooperatives UK, Social Networking for the Cooperative Movement, £109,000

BA (Hons) Consumer Studies (1^st Class)

MSc Information Management

PhD Technology Appropriation

Light, B., M. Griffiths and S. Lincoln (2012). “‘Connect and create’: Young people, YouTube and Graffiti Communities.” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 26(3): 343-355.

Crawford, C., Gosling, V. and Light, B. Eds. (2011) Online Gaming in Context: The Social and Cultural Significance of Online Games. London, Routledge.

Light, B. and K. McGrath (2010). “Ethics and Social Networking Sites: a Disclosive Analysis of Facebook.” Information Technology and People 23(4), 290-311.

Griffiths, M. and Light, B. (2008) Social Networking and Digital Media Convergence: Classification and its Consequences for Appropriation, Information Systems Frontiers 20(4), 447-459.

Light, B. Fletcher, G. and Adam, A. (2008) Gay Men, Gaydar and the Commodification of Difference, Information Technology and People, 21(3), 300-314.

Howcroft, D. and Light, B. (2010) “The Social Shaping of Packaged Software Selection,” Journal of the Association for Information Systems 11 (3), Article 2. http://aisel.aisnet.org/jais/vol11/iss3/2

Griffiths, M. and Light, B. (2009) An Investigation into Resistance Practices at an SME Consultancy, Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 22(1/2), 119 – 136.

Avila-Porro, D., Light, B. and McLean, R. (2008) Web Mediated Market Interactions and Enterprise Software, Cutter IT Journal, 21(6), 29-33.

Ferneley, E. and Light, B. (2008) Unpacking End-User Relations in an Emerging Ubiquitous Computing Environment: Introducing the Bystander, Journal of Information Technology, 23(3), 163-185.

Fletcher, G. and Light, B. (2007) Going Offline: An Exploratory Cultural Artifact Analysis of an Internet Dating Site’s Development Trajectories, International Journal of Information Management, 27(6), 422-431.

Light, B. (2007) Introducing Masculinity Studies to Information Systems Research: the Case of Gaydar, European Journal of Information Systems, 16(5), 658-665.