BU Research Blog

Members of the Promotional Cultures and Communication Centre (PCCC) have been granted British Academy/Leverhulme funding to conduct an inter-generational study of digital possessions in the family.

The study is a collaborative project with industry (Microsoft Research) and two Universities (Bournemouth University and Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University) that will provide insights into what the digitalisation of many objects – including heirlooms – means in the context of family and methodological testing that will enable future research. It also addresses crucial questions about the role digital media companies have in enabling and safeguarding family identity and history.

Dr. Janice Denegri-Knott, who leads the project said that “carrying the work now was crucial as we hope to provide a historical record of meaningful digital possessions kept at a unique point in time when children, parents and grandparents have varying degrees of digital media literacy.”   The work develops award winning research dealing with relationship between ownership and possession within a digital context (for more visit: https://www.jmmnews.com/do-we-own-our-digital-possessions/).

Janice is working on this project with Dr. Rebecca Jenkins and Dr. Sevil Yesiloglu.