Dr Giota Alevizou

My ongoing involvement in digital humanities stems from my research on the influence that technologies have in producing paradigms, methods and genres that incentivise artificial and collaborative intelligence as well as collective action. A strand of my research explores how innovation trajectories and materiality of global informational assemblages and social technologies affect the epistemology of media - ranging from alternative & learning media, encyclopaedias and semantic media, to, more recently, LLMs and Creative AI platforms. The exploration of how digital creativity affect the formation of civic cultures, informs an interrelated strand of my research into expressions of digital activism, digital/bio citizenship and the ’smart’ city.

I currently lead  ‘Outsmarted’, a project supported by the Digital Futures Institute and the Centre for Digital Culture, which seeks to bring forward young peoples’ insights about the intersections of digital and the learning city. I have previously co-led a string on research projects funded by Hewlett and Gates Foundations and AHRC/EPSRC, combining critical technology studies with approaches from open commons and design justice.

I have published widely in interdisciplinary domains in topics ranging from knowledge representation and collective intelligence, educational commons, platformization and data ethics, as well as, digital/ creative cities.

I hold a PhD in Media & Cultural Studies (Sussex University), MA in Media and Publishing Studies (Stirling University) and BA in Classics, Philosophy and Linguistics (Greece). Before joining KCL, I held research and teaching positions at The Open University (Institute of Educational Technology, Centre for Governance and Citizenship, Knowledge Media Institute) and at the Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science. 

Research interests and PhD supervision

• 'Explainable AI / Attribution Technologies
• Epistemologies, expertise & Semantic Media
• Critical Digital / AI literacies
• AI Trust and Fairness
• Digital /Smart Cities & Civic Media
• Political Economy of Platforms
• Creative digital methods & participatory pedagogies
• Media discourses on technological change

Selected publications

• Alevizou, G. ( 2023/forthcoming) The web of knowledge: Encyclopedias in the digital age. Cambridge: Polity.
• Alevizou, G. and Murchison, E. (2022) Authority, Sensory Power and the Appification of Biocitizenship: From Tracking the Pandemic to Vaccine Passports. Digital Culture & Society, Vol. 8 (Issue 1), pp. 13-42. https://doi.org/10.14361/dcs-2022-080103.
• Alevizou, G. (2021) Civic Media and Technologies of Belonging: where digital citizenship and the ‘right to the city converge. International Journal of Media and Cultural Policy. https://doi.org/10.1386/macp_00029_1.
• Alevizou, G. (2020). ‘Civic Media & Placemaking: (Re)Claiming Urban & Migrant Rights Across Digital and Physical Spaces’. In: Smets, K.; Leurs, K.; Georgiou, M.; Witteborn, S. and Gajjala, R. eds. The SAGE Handbook of Media and Migration. SAGE.
• Alevizou, G. (2020). Virtual Schooling, COVID-Inequalities: Building Resilience and Digital Literacies for Uncertain Futures. Digital Culture & Education [ISSN: 1836-8301 - online].
• Alevizou, G. (2017). From digital commons to the data-fied urge: Theorising evolving trends in the intersections of digital culture and open education. First Monday, 22(6). DOI: https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v22i6.7806.
• Alevizou, G.; Alexiou, K.; Harte, D.; Sobers, S.; Zamenopoulos, T. and Turner, J. (2016). Civic cultures and modalities of place-making. In: Hargreaves, I. and Hartley, J. eds. The creative citizen unbound: How social media and DIY culture contribute to democracy, communities and the creative economy. Bristol: Policy Press, pp. 205–230.

Teaching

• Digital Culture and Society
• Digital Cities
• Digital Campaigning
• Digital Colonialism
• Web Technologies
• Digital Futures
• Digital & Creative Methods

Expertise and public engagement 

• Former member of Tate Gallery’s Tate Exchange as part of the Who Are We programme, interrogating Identity, citizenship and Migration through socially engaged and digital art.
• Guest editor at Open Democracy. 
• Former advisory member at Wikimedia Foundation Research Committee and programme chair of Wikimania and OpenSym.