Domains of Sociodigital Practice

We explore how digital devices, services and data are shaping - and being shaped by - the following five everyday domains of sociodigital practice, which are described on this page.

The Domains are described as verbs (not fields or sectors), to capture the performativity and dynamism of practice across diverse and inter-related sites, analytical scales, and infrastructures.

The overall lead for the Domains of Sociodigital Practice is Professor Dale Southerton (Business School, University of Bristol).

On this page you can see:

Caring Domain

We are exploring if and how our experiences of care across society are affected through sociodigital arrangements and what opportunities this might create for how care is understood and can be reimagined for multiple futures. 

Debates about the place of digital technologies in the futures of care are often characterised by contrasting visions - promises of cheaper ways to provide better care are pitched against dystopic fears of being monitored, quantified and individualised. 

This approach is unhelpful and often focuses on potential harms or benefits of the emerging technologies without giving sufficient attention to the meaning, organisation and practices of care in everyday life. 

In contrast, we think about who/ what is doing the caring, how, in what setting and using what technologies? In this way we aim to understand the integrated challenges and opportunities of the sociodigital futures of care in particular for children, young people and their families. 

Projects include: 

Caring for Futures: 'Understanding and reimagining the embodied, social and material impacts and implications of algorithmic decision making to predict young people’s futures'. This cross-centre project explores predictive AI in public sector management of young people’s futures (Bristol City Council case study), working with international collaborators to develop engagement with policy makers, social workers and the wider public.  

A blog about the team’s work on ‘The (problematic) rise of predictive analytics in children’s social care' can be found here, and includes a link to a short film.  

Smart living: Everyday family life in the digital age. (1) Investigating how families incorporate technologies in mundane, everyday aspects of home life. (2) Exploring near future conversational user interfaces that leverage AI in the home and engaging families in co-designing smart home skills/apps that might be useful in their own contexts. 

Meet the caring domain team 

Consuming Domain

Sociodigital practices of entertainment and communication have undergone significant change in recent years and are the topic of intense speculation about their futures. 

At the same time, the relationships between digitalisation and everyday life are profoundly implicated in wider discussions of environmental sustainability as well as fundamental processes of social and economic change. Taking the home as a key site of consumption, we are interested in how everyday practices shape and are shaped by sociotechnical systems, as well as the environmental impacts of these systems. 

Projects include: 

TV, Everyday Life and Sociodigital Futures In depth fieldwork with households exploring the ways in which digital devices, data and services are linked to changes in the practice of watching TV, the material and temporal organisation of domestic life, and wider transformations in culture and economy. A short blog featuring some of the team’s work can be found here.

Futures of Home. An exploration of how ‘homes of the future’ are being imagined in the context of digitalisation. Emphasis on (possible absence of) radical design proposals as well as how mitigation of/adaptation to climate crises are manifest.  

6G futures The Consuming Futures team are also collaborating with the HPN TAP on this project. 

Meet the consuming domain team 

Learning Domain

Around the world, new technologies are driving speculative investment in educational platforms and approaches to learning.  AI, robotics and wearable tech, as well as immersive technologies and superfast wireless networks, are changing the way we learn and creating new possible sociodigital futures. 

From Immersive environments in museums and public arts settings to looking at use of AI and big data, we are exploring the sociodigital futures of learning and education. 

Through this work we aim to create alliances with educators, activists and others building the agency of marginalised communities to shape the direction of sociodigital futures in education. 

Projects include: 

Museums of the Future: Exploring how sociodigital futures are curated using empirical fieldwork in global futures museums (e.g. South America, Europe, Middle East). Includes a symposium of 30 participants from museums/cultural/arts institutions building a research portfolio on how immersive/speculative experiences can support democratic sociodigital futures (early 2026).  

This report summarises findings on research on ‘Immersive learning’ undertaken at Sparks, Bristol.  

Governing Futures of EdTech: Focusing on efforts by Department for Education in England, the project explores how AI has become a site of political experimentation that involves cross-sector policy networks of AI firms and policy agencies, actively funding, building and testing AI in live school settings.  

The above builds on work exploring Sociodigital futuring methods in edtech industry and investment, also explored in a short blog on ‘Building more socially just sociodigital futures of education’ which is available to read here.

There is also a briefing paper on Education's sociodigital promises and two journal articles:

Meet the learning domain team 

Moving Domain

The mobility of people and goods is profoundly implicated in inequality and sustainability. It is a field where global logistics meets justice. 

Our research looks at how digital technologies shape the movement of people and things, and considers the different futures that are made possible or closed down as a result of sociodigital changes. 

We will be focusing our research on future border technology programmes including the Home Office's Future Borders and Immigration System and Data Futures, and Defra's Biosecurity, Borders and Trade Programme. 

Projects include: 

Sociodigital Futures of Irregularised Mobility at the UK border: Comprising two inter-related elements (1) exploring how sociodigital futures claims influence everyday practices of both migrants and those controlling the border; (2) a collaborative sociodigital ethnography, working with Border Forensics (who work with digital trace data), to investigate deaths in the Channel. Overall, the project traces how digital technologies are mobilised both in attempts to secure and resist hegemonic futures. 

The above builds on work exploring Sociodigital borders: promises, challenges, futures summarised here as well as in a short blog which can be read here. 

A journal article co-authored by Van Isacker explores ‘Rethinking Freedom of Information Research: Selective Flows of Information in Borders and Migration Studies, and is available here .  

Meet the moving domain team 

Organizing Domain

Organising has always been shaped by technology. Whether we consider pottery and weapons, or medicines and transport, or new products and services, how humans organise is always a story of the entanglement of human and non-human materials.  

In a digital era, organising can now be effectively distributed across time and space, allowing action at a distance and temporal co-ordination. These forms of collection and dispersal can be used by powerful actors, such as states and corporations, as well as grassroots organisations, such as communities and activists.  

We’re exploring the ways in which sociodigital arrangements are shaping the futures of organisations and organising. We don't assume that the 'effects' of technology on work are inevitable, but rather that we need to better understand what sorts of futures are emerging or become likely. 

Projects include: 

What is Community Technology? This project includes (a) a longitudinal study of three community anchor organisations working with digital technologies to foster community-focused sociodigital futures; (b) an action research project that explores inclusive digital design with VR; and (c) growth of a national community tech network. You can read a short blog on ‘Communities and their sociodigital futures’ and listen to a podcast.

Futures of Work & Organization This project explores how global technological changes in telecommunications networks - often themselves compelled by emergent geopolitical conflicts - are reshaping the world of work at BT for those responsible for implementing, maintaining and managing the critical national infrastructure the company operates. The research incorporates findings from the a large scale employee survey, Your Say survey (a collaboration with the Methods Thread), interviews and ethnographic fieldwork. 

Meet the Organizing domain team