What I do
Politics and platforms. My research asks what parties and leaders actually post, who they reach and what platforms change: Janus-faced and satellite campaigns, targeted advertising and A/B testing, populism and engagement, comment sections and researcher access to platform data, in Britain, Europe and the United States.
Data stories. I also take big open datasets, from census returns and place-name gazetteers to monument records, weather grids and council rights of way, and turn them into interactive maps with a plain-English write-up. They cover sea levels and eclipses, Roman roads and holy wells, pub names and footpaths.
How I work
Everything is open. Papers go up as preprints with DOIs, data studies come with the data and code on GitHub and Zenodo, and each piece has a summary on the blog for people who just want the answer. I work mainly in Python and use quantitative and qualitative methods, mapping and careful counting.
Background
My ESRC-funded PhD at the University of Bath analysed how UK parties used Facebook from 2010 to 2018, and introduced the idea of Janus-faced campaigning. I was a research consultant for Who Targets Me during the 2019 General Election, gave written evidence to Parliament on digital technology and democracy, and have commented for broadcasters and the press.
What this site is for
It brings the research, the maps, writing, media appearances and videos together, with longer pieces on the blog. It is also home to the other things I make: browser games, art and photography, and music. Views here are my own.
Timeline
- 2016
PhD, University of Bath
An ESRC-funded doctorate on British parties' Facebook campaigns, after an LLB, an MA in Politics and an MRes.
- 2019
Who Targets Me
Research consultant during the General Election, analysing targeted political ads using crowdsourced data from volunteers.
- 2021
PhD awarded
How do political parties use Facebook? Thesis published open access, with the idea of Janus-faced campaigning.
- 2026
Open research and data stories
Papers on parties and platforms across Europe as open preprints, and interactive data studies of the past, places and weather in Britain and the world.
Elsewhere on the site
- Data stories: every interactive map, with the data and code
- Research: every paper, with abstracts, DOIs and open PDFs
- Inside the campaign machine: the ideas behind the research, with videos
- Publications: papers, thesis, chapters, commentary and the book
- Blog: plain-English summaries and longer pieces
- Media: press coverage and broadcast work from 2019 onwards
- Games, photos and music: the other things I make