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King’s People

Biography

Mercedes is Senior Lecturer in Digital Society at the Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London. Her research explores how digital technology transforms knowledge and with it power. She is a member of the Interdisciplinary Network for the Critical Humanities Terra Critica.

Her most recent books are Communication (University of Minnesota Press/meson press, 2019) and The Internet of Things (Polity, 2017) co-published with Professor Graham Meikle. Before that she wrote The Silent Revolution: How Digitalization Transforms Knowledge, Work, Journalism and Politics without Making Too Much Noise (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

She is a co-founder of the open access publishing house meson press, which publishes research on digital cultures and networked media. More about her can be found at mercedesbunz.net

Research Interest and PhD Supervision

  • Digital transformation of knowledge
  • Politics of technology, digital society
  • Interface studies, smart technology and artificial intelligence
  • Digitalisation of the public sphere, journalism and public services
  • History and theory of digital technology
  • Philosophy of technology

Mercedes welcomes PhD applications related to the above. For more details, please see her full research profile.

Teaching

Mercedes teaches across a broad range of issues in digital culture and society from interface studies to the politics of digital technology to digital journalism. 

Expertise and public engagement

Mercedes is a lively public speaker and has been invited to speak on various occasions from the Design Museum London to BBC Radio 4’s Today Show.

Mercedes has given written and oral evidence to the House of Lord’s Select Committee of Artificial Intelligence. Her recommendations have been taken up by the Select Committee’s report ‘AI in the UK: ready, willing and able?’

Selected Publications

  • Bialski, P. and F. Brunton and M. Bunz (2019) Communication, Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press.
  • Bunz, M. and L. Janciute (2018) Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things: UK Policy Opportunities and Challenges. London: University of Westminster Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16997/book25
  • Bunz, M. and G. Meikle, (2017) The Internet of Things, Cambridge, Polity Press.
  • Bunz, M. (2016) “The Things Are Not to Blame: Technical Agency and Thing Theory in the Face of the Internet of Things”, New Media, Old Media: A History and Theory Reader. Chun, W. and A. Watkins Fisher (ed.), 388-400. New York: Routledge.
  • Bunz, M. (2014) The Silent Revolution: How Digitalization Transforms Knowledge, Work, Journalism and Politics without Making Too Much Noise, Basingstoke: Palgrave.