Profile

Biography

• MSc (Bristol)
• BA (Southampton)

Brian was born in Bulawayo, Zimbawe in 1958. He grew up in the UK in Surrey before studying at Southampton University between 1978 and 1981 where he obtained a BSc (Joint Hons.) in Politics and Sociology. He taught public and social policy at Southampton Institute of Higher Education and gained a Master of Public Policy from the University of Bristol in 1989.

Moving north to work at the University of Teesside he taught first in the School of Social Sciences before establishing and directing the Community Informatics Research and Applications Unit in 1996. During this period he became founding Editor of the international journal of Information, Communication and Society, organised numerous conferences, led several research programmes, undertook keynote presentations and published books, articles and chapters on community informatics and e-democracy.

He joined the Department of Sociology at the University of York as a Senior Lecturer in 2006 to pursue his academic interests in new media technologies, such as the internet, and their socio-political diffusion. 

Research

Overview

Social and Community Informatics

• the sociology of new media and digital communications technologies, especially social networking, community networking, older and younger people’s use of ICTs

Communicative Technologies of Governance

• e-democracy, e-government, welfare delivery and social movements and political communication

Political Sociology

• especially young people and political engagement, democracy and communicative power

Research projects

• 2001 – 03, ‘Challenging the Digital Divide?’, Joseph Rowntree Foundation
• 2003 – 05, Loader, B., ‘Community Technologies’, ERDF
• 2003 - 06, Loader, B., Hardey, M. & Keeble, L., ‘Wired for the Third Age: Electronic Service Delivery for Older People’, Dept of Health Modernising Social Care Programme

Publications

Selected publications

• Hardey, M. & Loader, B. D. The Informatization of Welfare: Older People and the Role of Digital Services, British Journal of Social Work 2009
• Social Movements and New Media, Sociology Compass, Oct 2008.
• Loader, B. D., Hardey, M & Keeble, L. (eds) Digital Welfare for the Third Age (London:Routledge, 2008).
• Loader, B. D., Hardey, M., and Keeble, L.'Health Informatics for Older People: a review of ICT facilitated integrated care for older people', International Journal of Social Welfare, 17:1, 46-53, 2008.
• Loader, B. D. (ed) Young Citizens in the Digital Age (London:Routledge, 2007)