Phillip David Brooker

My background is in sociology, where I have recently completed my thesis; a video-aided ethnomethodological study of the use of programming languages in astrophysics and electrical engineering. This study reflects my wider interest in ethnomethodologically-flavoured work in and around the fields of Science and Technology Studies (STS), Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) and Human Computer Interaction (HCI).

Previousyl, I have contributed to the development and testing of a software package for facilitating social science research work involving Twitter data - Chorus (www.chorusanalytics.co.uk). I have since gone on to use Chorus software in the undertaking of various social science research projects in the burgeoning field of Social Media Analytics, investigating topics as diverse as accounts of cystic fibrosis sufferers, user-experiences of blood glucose monitoring devices and the use of 'racialised hashtags' in online discrimination (with Dr Sanjay Sharma, Brunel University).

Through this work I have been able to contribute to the development of methods and methodologies for doing Social Media Analytics, and I am currently exploring the potential for computer programming (specifically in Python) to feature as a core element of social science research methods training, especially around the use of digital data.