Bridgette Wessels
Biographic Data
| ID | 331885 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Bridgette Wessels |
| GIVEN NAMES | Bridgette |
| FAMILY NAME | Wessels |
| SIGNATURE | WESSELS B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Sheffield |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2794-2116 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 32 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Discovering smart: Early encounters and negotiations with smart street furniture in London and Glasgow
In the late 2010s, publics in the UK encountered new kinds of street furniture: Strawberry Energy Smart benches in London and InLinkUK kiosks in Glasgow, with smart features such as phone charging, free Wi-Fi, free phone calls, information screens and environmental data. This article analyses how smart street furniture is socially constructed by relevant social groups, each with different interests, forms of power and meanings. Smartness became a…
Situated, Yet Silent: Data Relations in Smart Street Furniture
This article provides new evidence of the ways that smart cities materialize within specific sites and contexts through smart street furniture (SSF). Drawing on empirical data generated through mixed-method field research, the article examines the situated data relations that emerge in the context of the adoption of InLinkUK smart kiosks in Glasgow and Strawberry Energy smart benches in London. The concept of “silences” is proposed to analyze ins…
Screen Choice: The Relations, Interactions and Articulations of Watching Film
People watch films on televisions, laptops, tablets, smartphones, and cinema screens. As technologies, each of these screen types provide different opportunities to select particular films, and to choose when and where to watch them. This raises questions about how and why people choose particular screens and the viewing experiences they gain from doing so. To address these questions, we draw on 200 semi-structured interviews with film audience m…
Inequalities in Regional Film Exhibition: Policy, Place and Audiences
This article questions the variety of film exhibition in four English regions. While a regional and national frame is the focus of cultural policy in relation to film audience development in the UK, our analysis examines relational, localised and sub-regional film cultures in order to understand how differing levels of film exhibition influence people's sense of place. This is framed within a discussion of cultural inequality more generally. In t…
Big Data and Employee Wellbeing: Walking the Tightrope between Utopia and Dystopia
This special issue was inspired by an Economic & Social Research Council funded seminar series that explored the possibilities for using Big Data and data analytics for assessing health and wellbeing risks within organisations. The aim of this special issue was to build on some of the themes developed in the seminar series and draw together and update some key insights from different disciplinary perspectives on the opportunities, challenges and …
Using mixed-methods, a data model and a computational ontology in film audience research
This paper discusses a methodology that seeks to address one of the challenges in working with a range of data in mixed-methods audience research, which is how to sort, order and categorise different data so that they can be systematically combined and interrogated. The methodology was developed as part of the “Beyond the Multiplex: audiences for specialised films in English regions” (BtM) project. This project required a mixed methods approach u…
Virtual exchange-based mobilities: Platform economy, exchange and culture
The development of a platform economy is generating new ways of virtual exchange-based mobilities. This economy is based on the use of digital media by networked individuals, the Internet of Things and digital platforms. The characteristics of the platform economy are informed by new imaginations of mobility that are shaped by dynamic circuits of data and connectivity as well as economic and cultural desires to find new ways to distribute and use…
Telehealth in Community Nursing: A Negotiated Order
Policy makers in the UK are looking to technology such as telehealth as a solution to the increasing demand for long term health care. Telehealth uses digital home monitoring devices and mobile applications to measure vital signs and symptoms that health professionals interpret remotely. The take up of telehealth in community health care is slow because there is uncertainty about its use. Findings from a qualitative study of community healthcare …
Inside the Digital Revolution: Policing and Changing Communication with the Public
In this work, Bridgette Wessels offers a unique insight into the ways in which core public institutions and powerful organizations develop digital communications and services within the public realm. The book draws on her ethnographic research with the London Metropolitan Police Service during their engagement in an innovative project to improve communication with the public using digital technology. As one of the largest, most advanced and highl…
Viešosios erdvės bei pilietinės visuomenės europėjimas ir dialogo kultūros puoselėjimas: Tinkamo nuotolio sąvoka
An ideal-type public sphere provides space for public debate regarding what makes for a ‘good society’, and for consideration of the issues involved in the development and sustainability of such a society. In general terms these debates are historically situated and nationally understood. Current developments in the process of fostering some development in the Europeanization of public spheres raise specific questions, such as: what are the obsta…
Exploring Social Change
Issues in the development of open access to research data
This paper explores key issues in the development of open access to research data. The use of digital means for developing, storing and manipulating data is creating a focus on ‘data-driven science’. One aspect of this focus is the development of ‘open access’ to research data. Open access to research data refers to the way in which various types of data are openly available to public and private stakeholders, user communities and citizens. Open …
Exploring human agency and digital systems: Services, personalization, and participation
The paper explores the relationship between human agency and digital services. The capacity of digital services to create knowledge from a range of sources has led some commentators to argue that digital services are a factor in redefining human agency because these services link, combine, and compute data to create new knowledge [Lyotard, J. (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Manchester University Press, Manchester; Lash, S.…
Mediating genocide: Cultural understanding through digital and print media stories in global communication
The rise of digital media is creating new ways for media producers and users to engage with stories from around the world. The use of stories is a common way for content to be shared. The global communication space for sharing stories is referred to as the mediapolis, and it incorporates networked interactions mediated through digital technology and traditional media such as print media. The mediapolis generates ways for users to engage with medi…
Identification and the practices of identity and privacy in everyday digital communication
The growth of e-services and social networking sites is generating popular online participation in which pre-digital ways of securing the privacy of individual identity are undermined. The characteristics of digital communication mean technology developers, policymakers, service providers and individuals are rethinking senses of identity, processes of identification and what privacy means in everyday life. To ensure that identity and privacy are …
Understanding the Internet
Explores how the internet is shaped and embedded within society, fostering new social worlds and ways of talking by using a wide range of examples to examine economic, political and cultural issues
Researcher-Led Development of E-Research in the Social Sciences: The Case of an E-Social Science Pilot Demonstrator Project
The introduction and use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the process of research is extending beyond research management into research practice itself. This extension of the use of ICT in research is being termed as e-research. The characteristics of e-research are seen as the combination of three interrelated strands, which are: the increased computerization of the research process; research organized more predominantly in…
Information and Communication Technologies and Policing: The Dynamics of Changing Police‐Public Communication in the East End of London
One of the problems the police face is how to maintain or improve levels of public access and communication within limited resources and a range of policing priorities. Policing multi‐cultural areas with multiple deprivations, such as the East End of London, requires networked information and communication services. The development of information and communication technology (ICT) is potentially a new form of communication for community police se…
Mediating Voices: Community Participation in the Design of E-Enabled Community Care Services
In the United Kingdom, information and communication technologies are being used to e-enable multiagency community services for children. Public policy advocates that practitioners as well as users should be involved in the shaping of services including the information systems used in their delivery. This article discusses how a group of social and computer scientists developed the social formation methodology to facilitate nonexpert community pa…
Situated Innovation of e-Social Science: Integrating Infrastructure, Collaboration, and Knowledge in Developing e-Social Science
This article explores the relationships between academic knowledge and the practice of research in the construction of new computer-supported research tools for e-social science. The article draws on a U.K. e-social science pilot demonstrator project, “Collaborative Analysis of Offenders’ Personal and Area-based Social Exclusion,” that explores the relative impact of individual and neighborhood effects on geographical crime patterns. Three main d…
A new public service communication environment? Public service broadcasting values in the reconfiguring media
In a complex and changing communication environment public service broadcasting is being subject to increasing scrutiny. Using a series of exemplars from various information society programmes, this paper explores the social relations of a new communication environment, audience participation and public service values in the reconfiguration of new media forms in the European Union. These developments require a new analytical framework of a new pu…
Telematics in the East End of London: New Media as a Cultural Form
A concept of the cultural form is used to analyse the development of community telematics services. The article is based on empirical research of the development of telematics in the East End of London. It is argued that the use and development of a technology expresses a social vision, creates a powerful symbol and engages us in a form of life. In the case of telematics this involves addressing a rethinking of citizenship along the lines of cons…
A new public service communication environment? Public service broadcasting values in the reconfiguring media
In a complex and changing communication environment public service broadcasting is being subject to increasing scrutiny. Using a series of exemplars from various information society programmes, this paper explores the social relations of a new communication environment, audience participation and public service values in the reconfiguration of new media forms in the European Union. These developments require a new analytical framework of a new pu…
Situated Innovation of e-Social Science: Integrating Infrastructure, Collaboration, and Knowledge in Developing e-Social Science
This article explores the relationships between academic knowledge and the practice of research in the construction of new computer-supported research tools for e-social science. The article draws on a U.K. e-social science pilot demonstrator project, “Collaborative Analysis of Offenders’ Personal and Area-based Social Exclusion,” that explores the relative impact of individual and neighborhood effects on geographical crime patterns. Three main d…
Using mixed-methods, a data model and a computational ontology in film audience research
This paper discusses a methodology that seeks to address one of the challenges in working with a range of data in mixed-methods audience research, which is how to sort, order and categorise different data so that they can be systematically combined and interrogated. The methodology was developed as part of the “Beyond the Multiplex: audiences for specialised films in English regions” (BtM) project. This project required a mixed methods approach u…
Virtual exchange-based mobilities: Platform economy, exchange and culture
The development of a platform economy is generating new ways of virtual exchange-based mobilities. This economy is based on the use of digital media by networked individuals, the Internet of Things and digital platforms. The characteristics of the platform economy are informed by new imaginations of mobility that are shaped by dynamic circuits of data and connectivity as well as economic and cultural desires to find new ways to distribute and use…
Identification and the practices of identity and privacy in everyday digital communication
The growth of e-services and social networking sites is generating popular online participation in which pre-digital ways of securing the privacy of individual identity are undermined. The characteristics of digital communication mean technology developers, policymakers, service providers and individuals are rethinking senses of identity, processes of identification and what privacy means in everyday life. To ensure that identity and privacy are …
Telematics in the East End of London: New Media as a Cultural Form
A concept of the cultural form is used to analyse the development of community telematics services. The article is based on empirical research of the development of telematics in the East End of London. It is argued that the use and development of a technology expresses a social vision, creates a powerful symbol and engages us in a form of life. In the case of telematics this involves addressing a rethinking of citizenship along the lines of cons…
A new public service communication environment? Public service broadcasting values in the reconfiguring media
In a complex and changing communication environment public service broadcasting is being subject to increasing scrutiny. Using a series of exemplars from various information society programmes, this paper explores the social relations of a new communication environment, audience participation and public service values in the reconfiguration of new media forms in the European Union. These developments require a new analytical framework of a new pu…
Situated Innovation of e-Social Science: Integrating Infrastructure, Collaboration, and Knowledge in Developing e-Social Science
This article explores the relationships between academic knowledge and the practice of research in the construction of new computer-supported research tools for e-social science. The article draws on a U.K. e-social science pilot demonstrator project, “Collaborative Analysis of Offenders’ Personal and Area-based Social Exclusion,” that explores the relative impact of individual and neighborhood effects on geographical crime patterns. Three main d…
Mediating Voices: Community Participation in the Design of E-Enabled Community Care Services
In the United Kingdom, information and communication technologies are being used to e-enable multiagency community services for children. Public policy advocates that practitioners as well as users should be involved in the shaping of services including the information systems used in their delivery. This article discusses how a group of social and computer scientists developed the social formation methodology to facilitate nonexpert community pa…
Information and Communication Technologies and Policing: The Dynamics of Changing Police‐Public Communication in the East End of London
One of the problems the police face is how to maintain or improve levels of public access and communication within limited resources and a range of policing priorities. Policing multi‐cultural areas with multiple deprivations, such as the East End of London, requires networked information and communication services. The development of information and communication technology (ICT) is potentially a new form of communication for community police se…
Understanding the Internet
Explores how the internet is shaped and embedded within society, fostering new social worlds and ways of talking by using a wide range of examples to examine economic, political and cultural issues
Researcher-Led Development of E-Research in the Social Sciences: The Case of an E-Social Science Pilot Demonstrator Project
The introduction and use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the process of research is extending beyond research management into research practice itself. This extension of the use of ICT in research is being termed as e-research. The characteristics of e-research are seen as the combination of three interrelated strands, which are: the increased computerization of the research process; research organized more predominantly in…
Mediating genocide: Cultural understanding through digital and print media stories in global communication
The rise of digital media is creating new ways for media producers and users to engage with stories from around the world. The use of stories is a common way for content to be shared. The global communication space for sharing stories is referred to as the mediapolis, and it incorporates networked interactions mediated through digital technology and traditional media such as print media. The mediapolis generates ways for users to engage with medi…
Identification and the practices of identity and privacy in everyday digital communication
The growth of e-services and social networking sites is generating popular online participation in which pre-digital ways of securing the privacy of individual identity are undermined. The characteristics of digital communication mean technology developers, policymakers, service providers and individuals are rethinking senses of identity, processes of identification and what privacy means in everyday life. To ensure that identity and privacy are …
Exploring human agency and digital systems: Services, personalization, and participation
The paper explores the relationship between human agency and digital services. The capacity of digital services to create knowledge from a range of sources has led some commentators to argue that digital services are a factor in redefining human agency because these services link, combine, and compute data to create new knowledge [Lyotard, J. (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Manchester University Press, Manchester; Lash, S.…
Exploring Social Change
Issues in the development of open access to research data
This paper explores key issues in the development of open access to research data. The use of digital means for developing, storing and manipulating data is creating a focus on ‘data-driven science’. One aspect of this focus is the development of ‘open access’ to research data. Open access to research data refers to the way in which various types of data are openly available to public and private stakeholders, user communities and citizens. Open …
Viešosios erdvės bei pilietinės visuomenės europėjimas ir dialogo kultūros puoselėjimas: Tinkamo nuotolio sąvoka
An ideal-type public sphere provides space for public debate regarding what makes for a ‘good society’, and for consideration of the issues involved in the development and sustainability of such a society. In general terms these debates are historically situated and nationally understood. Current developments in the process of fostering some development in the Europeanization of public spheres raise specific questions, such as: what are the obsta…
Inside the Digital Revolution: Policing and Changing Communication with the Public
In this work, Bridgette Wessels offers a unique insight into the ways in which core public institutions and powerful organizations develop digital communications and services within the public realm. The book draws on her ethnographic research with the London Metropolitan Police Service during their engagement in an innovative project to improve communication with the public using digital technology. As one of the largest, most advanced and highl…
Telehealth in Community Nursing: A Negotiated Order
Policy makers in the UK are looking to technology such as telehealth as a solution to the increasing demand for long term health care. Telehealth uses digital home monitoring devices and mobile applications to measure vital signs and symptoms that health professionals interpret remotely. The take up of telehealth in community health care is slow because there is uncertainty about its use. Findings from a qualitative study of community healthcare …
Virtual exchange-based mobilities: Platform economy, exchange and culture
The development of a platform economy is generating new ways of virtual exchange-based mobilities. This economy is based on the use of digital media by networked individuals, the Internet of Things and digital platforms. The characteristics of the platform economy are informed by new imaginations of mobility that are shaped by dynamic circuits of data and connectivity as well as economic and cultural desires to find new ways to distribute and use…
Big Data and Employee Wellbeing: Walking the Tightrope between Utopia and Dystopia
This special issue was inspired by an Economic & Social Research Council funded seminar series that explored the possibilities for using Big Data and data analytics for assessing health and wellbeing risks within organisations. The aim of this special issue was to build on some of the themes developed in the seminar series and draw together and update some key insights from different disciplinary perspectives on the opportunities, challenges and …
Using mixed-methods, a data model and a computational ontology in film audience research
This paper discusses a methodology that seeks to address one of the challenges in working with a range of data in mixed-methods audience research, which is how to sort, order and categorise different data so that they can be systematically combined and interrogated. The methodology was developed as part of the “Beyond the Multiplex: audiences for specialised films in English regions” (BtM) project. This project required a mixed methods approach u…
Screen Choice: The Relations, Interactions and Articulations of Watching Film
People watch films on televisions, laptops, tablets, smartphones, and cinema screens. As technologies, each of these screen types provide different opportunities to select particular films, and to choose when and where to watch them. This raises questions about how and why people choose particular screens and the viewing experiences they gain from doing so. To address these questions, we draw on 200 semi-structured interviews with film audience m…
Inequalities in Regional Film Exhibition: Policy, Place and Audiences
This article questions the variety of film exhibition in four English regions. While a regional and national frame is the focus of cultural policy in relation to film audience development in the UK, our analysis examines relational, localised and sub-regional film cultures in order to understand how differing levels of film exhibition influence people's sense of place. This is framed within a discussion of cultural inequality more generally. In t…
Situated, Yet Silent: Data Relations in Smart Street Furniture
This article provides new evidence of the ways that smart cities materialize within specific sites and contexts through smart street furniture (SSF). Drawing on empirical data generated through mixed-method field research, the article examines the situated data relations that emerge in the context of the adoption of InLinkUK smart kiosks in Glasgow and Strawberry Energy smart benches in London. The concept of “silences” is proposed to analyze ins…
Discovering smart: Early encounters and negotiations with smart street furniture in London and Glasgow
In the late 2010s, publics in the UK encountered new kinds of street furniture: Strawberry Energy Smart benches in London and InLinkUK kiosks in Glasgow, with smart features such as phone charging, free Wi-Fi, free phone calls, information screens and environmental data. This article analyses how smart street furniture is socially constructed by relevant social groups, each with different interests, forms of power and meanings. Smartness became a…
Computer Science (19 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Political science (14 works) · Public relations (10 works) · World Wide Web (10 works) · Business (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Engineering (6 works) · Internet privacy (5 works) · Knowledge management (5 works)