Digitisation is transforming cultural practices, from friendship, intimacy and sexual relations, to the construction, targeting, and surveillance of publics. Digital platforms and mobile apps, such as Facebook, Tinder, YouTube, Instagram, Netflix, the Russian platform VK, and the China-based WeChat, TikTok, and Tantan, have rapidly become central to the production, circulation, consumption, and monetization of culture. The complexity and scale of these changes require active collaboration across a wide variety of disciplines, including economics, the social sciences and the humanities. With this in mind, GDC will build on and further strengthen existing interdisciplinary and cross-faculty collaborations within UvA and beyond to identify vital topics, shape research agendas and develop innovative methods.

Led by researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds, GDC is designed to maximise such interdisciplinary collaboration.