Introduction
Introduction
Alexander is a PhD candidate of Information Science & Technology at Syracuse University’s iSchool. They are an affiliate of Center for Computational and Data Sciences (CCDS). They work for the The Network Influence and Information Curation Lab and Metadata Lab. They have a Masters and Bachelors in Economics from Georgia State University and University of West Georgia respectively.
Alex’s research is closely tied to memetics: the study of memes. In particular they are developing theoretical and methodological lenses to approach evolutionary information of culture. Such approaches currently are closing the gaps between the theoretical memetics research that was developing at the start of the 21st century and the datafication processes of Internet Memetics which developed a decade later. Branching off of memetics, Alex is interested in connecting to the following empirical spaces:
- Internet Memetics (an interdisciplinary branch of digital culture & media studies)
- Knowledge Memetics (a subarea of Science of Science)
- Information Diffusion
- Knowledge Organization
- Document Studies
- Cultural Analytics
Alex’s theoretical thought owes a great deal to the following topics:
- Debates in Cultural Evolution
- Evolutionary Information
- Post-Cybernetic Theories of Information
- Bioinformation, Biophilosophy, and Biosemiotics
- Affect in Media Studies
- Evolutionary Epistemology
- Deleuzian Ontology
They have practice in the following methodological lenses:
- Content Analysis
- Network Methods (SNA and Network Science)
- Regression
- Trace Ethnography
Future research intends to carve out empirically applicable approaches to evolutionary culture within an Information Studies lens as well as a development of principles for documenting, curating, and archiving digitally connected media. Such research requires a datafication project of culture connected to parallel theory development.