Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford

OII Director, Professor Helen Margetts, introduces the work of the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford.

AUDIO: The Oxford Internet Institute is a multidisciplinary research and teaching department of the University of Oxford, dedicated to the social science of the Internet. Or put more simply, to 'understanding life online'.

Since our founding in 2001, the Internet has exploded. Digital connections are now embedded in almost every aspect of our daily lives. So research on individual and collective behaviour online is crucial to understanding our social, economic and political world. Our academic faculty and graduate students are drawn from traditional social science fields like sociology, economics, and political science, but also from law, physics, geography, computer science, psychology and philosophy, to name but a few. We believe this combined approach is essential to tackle society's 'big questions'.

For example, global patterns in health and inequality can be visualised in real time. We can track individual interactions within a crowd, and model how they scale up to global networks of protest. Our increasingly data-driven world -- the world of so-called ‘big data’ -- presents huge opportunities and challenges for industry, government, and policy makers. As the public policy environment enters a period of dramatic change and uncertainty we are able to provide the empirical data and conceptual analysis that is so needed to design policy solutions to societal problems.

It's an incredibly exciting time to be the director of the Oxford Internet Institute. As researchers we have unprecedented access to a huge volume of rich social data, and are developing new theories, concepts and methods to analyse it. Our Masters and doctoral programmes bring students from all over the world, to work with our faculty at the cutting-edge of their fields. Together, we aim to positively shape the development of our digital world for the public good. Show less