I am a digital media researcher based in the UK. I am a Lecturer in Digital Media and Society at the University of Sheffield, where I am also Director of the Digital Society Network within the Faculty of Social Sciences. My research explores social and digital media, from visual, temporal, cultural, and political perspectives.
My first book, Social Media and Everyday Politics, came out in April 2016. Instagram: Visual social media cultures, co-authored with Tama Leaver and Crystal Abidin, was published in 2020.
Previously, I was Assistant Professor in New Media at the University of Amsterdam (2018-19), and before that Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow in the Digital Media Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology (2015-18), for my fellowship project ‘Visual Cultures of Social Media’. Between 2018 and 2020 I was Secretary of the Visual Communication Studies division of the International Communication Association. I am currently serving on the organising committee for the 2024 Association of Internet Researchers conference (#AoIR2024) to be held in Sheffield between 30 October and 2 November 2024.
You can find me on most platforms as @timhighfield (on Mastodon I’m @timhighfield@aoir.social), and if you’d like to know more about my research, feel free to email me — t.j.highfield AT sheffield.ac.uk
For postal correspondence: Tim Highfield, Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield, The Wave, 2 Whitham Road, Sheffield S10 2AH, United Kingdom