SIM - Society, Information and Media

The centre for Society Information and Media (SIM) was established in 2005 to coordinate, support and promote a wide range of research initiatives in all aspects of print, audiovisual and digital media.

SIM is situated in the School of Communications yet has a strongly interdisciplinary and international outlook. Its members are academic staff, research associates, practitioners and postgraduate researchers actively engaged in collaborative projects and/or with shared interests in developing further such projects. Dr. Debbie Ging is the current Director of SIM.

SIM has built upon the successes of previous research initiatives in DCU such as STeM and COMTEC to become the national leader in communications and media research. Its researchers are concerned with all aspects - economic, social, cultural, political and technological - of mediated communication in a globalising world, and employ a wide range of approaches including those of policy studies, reception analysis, cultural studies, political economy, history and textual studies.

SIM also supports collaborative media production and practice projects, including the authoring/design of new media objects and digital media applications for teaching and learning. The SIM centre enables a number of dedicated research clusters to pool methodological expertise and resources with a view to growing larger interdisciplinary and transnational projects. SIM members have relations with CELSIUS, the Centre for International Studies (CIS), the Centre for Translation and Textual Studies (CTTS), the Centre for Consumption Studies (CCS) and the DCU Migration and Interculturalism Research Cluster (MIRC).

SIM's current research clusters are:

• International Media, Interculturalism and Migration
• Digital Games / New Media and Education
• Science and Environmental Communication
• Journalism in the Digital Age

SIM's core objectives are:

• To support and produce high-impact, inter-disciplinary research with a strong international focus
• To attract and support top-quality doctoral and postdoctoral students
• To develop teams of expertise in cutting-edge areas with a view to participating in international networks
• To secure external funding for research projects which have a tangible impact on policy across a range of sectors (educational, broadcasting, intercultural, NGOs, etc.)
• To provide researchers with possibilities for international exchange and to facilitate research visits to Ireland