| Type | Department |
|---|---|
| Established | 2001 |
| Director | Victoria Nash |
| Location | Oxford , United Kingdom |
| Campus | Stephen A Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities |
| Website | www |
 | |
The Oxford Internet Institute (OII) is a multidisciplinary department of the University of Oxford dedicated to studying the social, economic and political dimensions of digital technologies.
Established in 2001, the Oxford Internet Institute was among the first academic centres to focus on the impacts of the internet and related technologies for people. [1] Its work treats the internet as more than infrastructure, examining it as a space where identities are formed, economies are built, and power is contested, with research covering technologies ranging from algorithmic decision-making, large language models, and generative AI to location tracking, facial recognition, and autonomous systems. [2]
The current Director, Dr Victoria Nash, was appointed in 2021. [3]
The OII is based at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities.[ citation needed ]
The Oxford Internet Institute conducts research on the social, political, and economic impacts of digital technologies. Its work combines theoretical, empirical, and computational approaches to examine how digital systems shape societies, economies, institutions, and individual behaviour. [4]
The Institute produces evidence, software, tools, and conceptual frameworks that inform policy, guide innovation, and support public understanding of technology. OII scholarship has contributed to both methodological advances and practical applications, helping governments, industry, and civil society navigate the opportunities and challenges presented by the digital age. [5]
The OII currently has the following research clusters reflecting the diverse expertise of faculty:
The OII collaborates with other institutions of the University of Oxford such as the Blavatnik School of Government, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, the Department of Computer Science, the Department of Economics, the Saïd Business School, and the Oxford Martin School.
Research highlights include:
OII has published several studies on Internet geography and Wikipedia. In November 2011, The Guardian Data Blog published maps of geotagged Wikipedia articles written in English, Arabic, Egyptian Arabic, French, Hebrew and Persian. [6] OII researcher Mark Graham [7] led the study and published the results on his blog, Zero Geography. [8]
Graham also leads an OII project focused on how new users are perceived, represented, and incorporated into the Wikipedia community. [9]
In 2013, OII researchers led by Taha Yasseri published a study of controversial topics in 10 different language versions of Wikipedia, using data related to "edit wars". [10]
In 2020, OII researcher Fabian Stephany and his colleague Hamza Salem published a study on using information-seeking behaviour patterns of Wikipedia users to predict US congressional elections. [11] Their model accurately predicted the election outcome for 31 of 35 states in the 2020 United States Senate elections. [12]
The Oxford Internet Institute offers two doctoral degrees, two master’s programmes, and a Summer Doctoral Programme with UC Berkeley: [13]
The Oxford Internet Institute was established in 2001 following proposals by Andrew Graham, then Master-Elect of Balliol College, and MP Derek Wyatt, with the support of Oxford University and Vice-Chancellor Colin Lucas. [14] Its creation was funded by a major donation from Dame Stephanie Shirley through the Shirley Foundation, alongside support from the Higher Education Funding Council for England. [15]
The OII was founded as a multidisciplinary department rooted in the social sciences, with a mandate to study the societal, political, economic, and ethical implications of the internet. From its earliest years, the Institute sought to link research with policy, a focus emphasised by its first Director, William H. Dutton, in 2002. [16]
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