Dr James Allen-Robertson
Small Group Project 2020-21
Deciphering Violence: New Network Analytic Tools for Improving Hate Speech Detection Online
With Johanna Römer
Bringing together experts in geo-spatial mapping, digital media and linguistic analysis, and computer scientists, project participants will contribute to building a software that helps researchers and companies to understand the interactions and user engagements surrounding instances of hate speech. Using a custom designed network analytic software, we build a connectivity-defined architecture for mapping online Twitter communities in order to identify spatial, temporal, discursive and engagement patterns in the circulation of hate speech within select Twitter communities.
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Biography
James Allen-Robertson is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Essex, working at the intersection of digital sociology and computational social science. His research interests centre on tech cultures, far-right radicalisation, radical online communities, and the development of new digital methods using data science.
His current projects focus on mapping and studying radical far-right tech cultures and the political ideologies of tech elites. Methodologically, he specialises in computationally grounded qualitative approaches, using large-scale text and network analysis to explore unusual and complex non-traditional datasets in support of qualitative analysis. Past projects include a book on the history of digital piracy, articles on the role of hardware and software design in shaping media consumption, mapping far-right social media communities, and research into the tentative alliances between tech companies and civil liberties groups in opposing state surveillance.
Allen-Robertson teaches primarily in media and data science methods, covering topics including radicalisation online, labour automation and AI, masculinity and technology, and the politics of tech cultures. In his methods courses he specialises in teaching programming skills and data science techniques to complete beginners as part of their training in computational social science research methods.
His current projects focus on mapping and studying radical far-right tech cultures and the political ideologies of tech elites. Methodologically, he specialises in computationally grounded qualitative approaches, using large-scale text and network analysis to explore unusual and complex non-traditional datasets in support of qualitative analysis. Past projects include a book on the history of digital piracy, articles on the role of hardware and software design in shaping media consumption, mapping far-right social media communities, and research into the tentative alliances between tech companies and civil liberties groups in opposing state surveillance.
Allen-Robertson teaches primarily in media and data science methods, covering topics including radicalisation online, labour automation and AI, masculinity and technology, and the politics of tech cultures. In his methods courses he specialises in teaching programming skills and data science techniques to complete beginners as part of their training in computational social science research methods.
Biographical details correct as of 29.04.26