Ben Berners-Lee
Doctoral Candidate in Communication & Cognitive Science
Hi, I'm Ben. I am a Herbert I. Schiller Dissertation Fellow at the Department of Communication at UC San Diego, where I am a Ph.D. candidate in communication & cognitive science. My home department is Communication and I am a member of the Cognitive Science Interdisciplinary Program (IDP).
I use methods from ethnography, semiotics, multi-modal interaction analysis and sociology of science to study communication and work practices in the mind & brain sciences. I study domains including neuroscience, psychiatry, data science and new media. You can find my publications on these topics below.
My dissertation is based on observations of a digital psychiatry laboratory where I investigate the role of human communication, new forms of labor and environmental factors as these become relevant in the implementation of data-driven mental health care.
Research Interests
I research topics including multimodal interaction, representation systems in science, embodiment and knowledge of the body, practices of care in digital psychiatry, and the new forms of interaction, communication and labor involved in new media systems.
I am interested in research questions like:
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How do scientists conceptualize and describe in formal accounts (eg. talks) the role of humans, machines and data as they develop new mental health interventions? How do these formal accounts relate to, reduce or influence observed practices?
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What kinds of embodied practices are involved in the use of new media systems and new healthcare technologies?
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How and to what extent do conceptual metaphors structure the development and contestation of theories in the mind & brain sciences?
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How do the theories that inform the methods that we use in the social studies of science/science and technology studies (STS), relate to those of the neuroscientists, psychiatrists and other scientists that we study.
Publications
Berners‐Lee, B. (2023). Reconciling healthism and techno‐solutionism: An observational study of a digital mental health trial. Sociology of Health & Illness, 1467-9566.13683. doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13683
Berners-Lee, B. (2023). The semiotics of digital cartography at the Geoguessr interface: A practice-oriented case study. New Media & Society, 14614448231160132. doi.org/10.1177/14614448231160132
Berners-Lee, B. (2022). Accommodating representation in the neuroscience of memory: A conceptual blending analysis of replay and preplay in hippocampal place cell research. Cognitive Semiotics, 15(2), 175–196. doi.org/10.1515/cogsem-2022-2015