Dr Addie McGowan
Salford Business School
Current positions
Post-Doc Research Associate
Biography
Dr. Addie McGowan is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Market Studies at the University of Salford Business School.
Her work explores the sociology of digital markets and platform economies, from adtech systems like Google and Meta, traveltech platforms like Airbnb, and generative data systems like knowledge graphs. She is especially interested in the way(s) platform markets and their data structures produce representations of knowledge, cultures, and places. Her work advocates for qualitative, critical study of "the digital" including ethnography and design-as-research methods.
She is active in the market studies, STS, and sociology communities. She serves as a Reviews and Online Content editor for the Journal of Cultural Economy, and co-hosts the journal's podcast, "Cultural Economy in the Kitchen."
She recently completed a postdoctoral research fellowship with the Data Civics Observatory at the Edinburgh Futures Institute and with the AdTech Research Project in Sociology at the University of Edinburgh. She earned her PhD in Architecture and Sociology at Edinburgh in 2023, an MSc in Digital Society also from the University of Edinburgh in 2018, and a BA in Sociology and Communication from Trinity University in San Antonio, TX USA in 2008.
Outside of academia, Addie has built a career as a digital marketing strategist, working continually in the industry since 2008. The practical knowledge and insight gained from this work inspires the sociological questions she asks of the platforms, data, and practices she encounters.
Areas of Research
market studies, science and technology studies, digital sociology, platform studies, AI, critical media studies, digital advertising, economic sociology
Qualifications
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PhD
2019 - 2023 -
Digital Sociology
2017 - 2018 -
Sociology and Communication
2004 - 2008