Lina Dencik

Staff details

Lina Dencik

Position

Professor and University Research Leader in AI Justice

Department

Media, Communications and Cultural Studies

Email

L.Dencik (@gold.ac.uk)

Lina researches the relationship between digital media and social change with a focus on the politics of data and AI

Lina is Professor in the Department of Media, Communication and Cultural Studies and University Research Leader in AI Justice. She is Co-Founder/Director of the Data Justice Lab and has published widely on digital media and the politics of data, with a particular focus on governance and resistance.

Together with the Data Justice Lab, she has carried out extensive research into the societal implications of datafication and AI, foregrounding a concern with social justice. Her recent projects include DATAJUSTICE (funded by an ERC Starting Grant), Data Scores as Governance, Civic Participation in a Datafied Society (both funded by the Open Society Foundations), and Advancing Data Justice in the Future Generations Well-being Act (funded by the ESPRC).

Lina has published 8 books and over 30 journal articles and book chapters. She is currently working on a sole-authored monograph on power and justice in an age of datafication.

Research interests

Lina's research focuses on the interplay between developments in media and social and political change. Over the past few years, she has advanced an internationally recognised research agenda that has actively sought to shift the debate on datafication by exploring contentious areas of social life that have historically been significant for social justice concerns, from welfare and work to policing and migration. Her approach is rooted in critical social science, and is often interdisciplinary combining insights from social science with disciplines such as computer science and law.

Lina's most recent publications include Data Justice (with Hintz, Redden and Treré, Sage, 2022); The Media Manifesto (with Fenton, Freedman and Schlosberg, Polity 2020); and Digital Citizenship in a Datafied Society (with Hintz and Wahl-Jorgensen, Polity, 2018). Her research has appeared across a range of outlets, including leading international journals in media studies, policy, and computer science, and has informed media and policy debate both nationally and internationally.

She is currently working to establish a research programme in AI Justice, exploring issues of the state; work and everyday life; policy and regulation; and the possibility for alternative more just and sustainable computational infrastructures.

Publications and research outputs

Article

Dencik, Lina; Brand, Jessica and Murphy, Sarah. 2024. What do data rights do for workers? A critical analysis of trade union engagement with the datafied workplace. Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, ISSN 1024-2589

Niklas, Jedrzej and Dencik, Lina. 2024. Data justice in the "twin objective" of market and risk: how discrimination is formulated in EU’s AI policy. Policy & Internet, ISSN 1944-2866

Dencik, Lina and Stevens, Sanne. 2023. Regimes of justification in the datafied workplace: the case of hiring. New Media and Society, 25(12), pp. 3657-3675. ISSN 1461-4448

Book

Dencik, Lina; Hintz, Arne; Redden, Joanna and Trere, Emiliano. 2022. Data justice. London: Sage Publications. ISBN 9781529720945

Fenton, Natalie; Freedman, Des (D. J.) ; Schlosberg, Justin and Dencik, Lina. 2020. The Media Manifesto. Cambridge: Polity. ISBN 9781509538065

Hintz, Arne; Dencik, Lina and Wahl-Jorgensen, Karin. 2018. Digital citizenship in a datafied society. Cambridge: Polity Press. ISBN 9781509527168

Book Section

Dencik, Lina. 2022. The datafied welfare state: a perspective from the UK. In: Andreas Hepp; Juliane Jarke and Leif Kramp, eds. New Perspectives in Critical Data Studies The Ambivalences of Data Power. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave, pp. 145-165. ISBN 9783030961800

Dencik, Lina. 2021. Towards data justice unionism? A labour perspective on AI governance. In: Pieter Verdegem, ed. AI for Everyone?: Critical Perspectives. London: Westminster University Press, pp. 267-284. ISBN 9781914386138

Dencik, Lina. 2021. Overvågning og digitale medier. In: Mette Mortensen and Mikkel Fugl Eskjær, eds. Klassisk og moderne medieteori. Copenhagen: Gyldendal. ISBN 9788741272610

Conference or Workshop Item

Sanchez-Monedero, Javier; Dencik, Lina and Edwards, Lilian. 2020. 'What does it mean to 'solve' the problem of discrimination in hiring? Social, technical and legal perspectives from the UK on automated hiring systems'. In: Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAT* ’20). Barcelona, Spain 27 - 30 January 2020.

Digital

Dencik, Lina; Jansen, Fieke and Metcalfe, Philippa. 2018. A conceptual framework for approaching social justice in an age of datafication.

Dencik, Lina and Hintz, Arne. 2017. Civil society in an age of surveillance: beyond techno-legal solutionism?.

Dencik, Lina. 2016. Predictive policing and the automated suppression of dissent.

Edited Book

Wahl-Jorgensen, Karin; Hintz, Arne; Dencik, Lina and Bennett, Lucy, eds. 2020. Journalism, citizenship and surveillance society. Abingdon: Routledge. ISBN 9781032839004

Allan, Stuart; Carter, Cynthia; Cushion, Stephen; Dencik, Lina; Garcia-Blanco, Inaki; Harris, Janet; Sambrook, Richard; Wahl-Jorgensen, Karin and Williams, Andrew, eds. 2018. The future of journalism: risks, threats and opportunities. Abingdon: Routledge. ISBN 9781138616493

Report

Metcalfe, Philippa; Dencik, Lina; Chelioudakis, Eleftherios and van Eerd, Boudewijn. 2023. Risking lives: Smart borders, private interests and AI policy in Europe. Project Report. Data Justice Lab, Cardiff.

Brand, Jessica; Dencik, Lina and Murphy, Sarah. 2023. The Datafied Workplace and Trade Unions in the UK. Working Paper. Data Justice Lab, Cardiff.

Lange, Steffen; Santarius, Tilman; Dencik, Lina; Diez, Tomas; Ferreboeuf, Hugues; Hankey, Stephanie; Hilbeck, Angelika; Hilty, Lorenz M.; Hojer, Mattias; Kleine, Dorothea; Johanna, Pohl; Reisch, Lucia; Ryghaug, Marianne; Schwanen, Tim and Staab, Philipp. 2023. Digital reset: redirecting technologies for the deep sustainability transformation. Technical Report. oekom, Munich.

Thesis

Dencik, Lina. 2010. News Practices and Theories of Global Civil Society. Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London