Dr Niall Docherty

BA (Goldsmiths), MA (Goldsmiths), PhD (Nottingham)

School of Information, Journalism and Communication

Lecturer in Data, AI and Society

Niall Docherty
Profile picture of Niall Docherty
n.docherty@sheffield.ac.uk
Room C224, The Wave

Full contact details

Dr Niall Docherty
School of Information, Journalism and Communication
Room C224
The Wave
2 Whitham Road
Sheffield
S10 2AH
Profile

My research and teaching examines the power relations generated through everyday engagements with technology and the politics of computational design. I am currently involved in projects that explore digital well-being, technological control, ethical computing, histories of the user, and non-standard epistemological approaches to interdisciplinary collaboration. Prior to joining the University of Sheffield in 2022, I completed a PhD at the Centre for Critical Theory, University of Nottingham, was a Postdoctoral Researcher at Microsoft Research within the Social Media Collective, and a Research Fellow within the Responsible Computing group at the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy. I publish in interdisciplinary venues such as ACM CHI, Information, Communication and Society, Social Media + Society, and Science as Culture, and present my work at conferences such as AoIR, 4S, EASST and ICA. My first book, Healthy Users: The Governance of Well-Being on Social Media, was published in 2025 by the University of California Press.

Research interests

My work spans across multiple fields, such as:

  • Cultural studies

  • Critical theory

  • Continental philosophy

  • STS

  • Critical algorithm studies

  • Critical HCI

  • Interdisciplinary theory

  • Responsible computing

I can supervise a wide range of interdisciplinary topics that could involve, for instance, mixed method studies of platforms and their use, qualitative digital research, sociotechnical theory, critiques of capitalism, and responsible computational design. Some possible topics include:

  • Sociotechnical systems, power, and discursive materiality

  • Truth and conflict in public spheres

  • Nudge, interfaces, and governance through habit

  • Neoliberalism and contemporary modes of digital responsibilization

  • Digital well-being

  • The politics of social media

  • The production of users and hegemonic forms of usership

  • Foucault, governmentality, subjectivation and digital media

Publications

Books

  • Docherty N (2025) Healthy Users: The Governance of Well-Being on Social Media. University of California Press.

Journal articles

  • Thomas N & Docherty N (2025) . Business & Society.
  • Young D & Docherty N (2024) . Science as Culture, 34(2), 168-193.
  • Gibson AD, Docherty N & Gillespie T (2023) . Information, Communication & Society, 27(7), 1441-1457.
  • Docherty N (2021) Digital self-control and the neoliberalization of social media well-being. International Journal of Communication, 15, 3827-3846.
  • Docherty N (2020) . Social Media + Society, 6(2).

Book chapters

  • Docherty N (2025) , Springer Reference Sozialwissenschaften (pp. 1-7). Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden

Conference proceedings

  • Krysztoforska M, Docherty N & Biega A (2023) . CHI '23: Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp 655). Hamburg, Germany, 23 April 2023 - 23 April 2023.
  • Docherty N & Biega AJ (2022) . CHI '22: Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp 1-13). New Orleans, LA, USA, 30 April 2022 - 5 May 2022.
Teaching activities

IJC103 Digital Media and Society

IJC204 Data Ethics and Leadership

IJC414 Data and Society