Dr. Meghan Ferriter is an interdisciplinary researcher who currently cultivates programs of engagement and advises on workflow as Project Coordinator for the Smithsonian Transcription Center. She collaborates with volunteers and staff to increase access to and interaction with Smithsonian Institution collections. Meghan also shares with the wider cultural heritage, digital humanities, and citizen science communities the goal of increased knowledge-sharing and improving experiences in collaborative activities like crowdsourced transcription.

Her primary research explores the communication of cultural beliefs through media technologies and in media discourse; and the ways groups learn and refine understanding of social relationships through these resources – whether through political cartoons, newspaper discourse, hashtags, or user-generated content. Meghan’s research examines social identities and boundaries; processes of cultural change; language, power, representation, and discourse; and sport and popular culture. Trained as an anthropologist and cultural historian, Meghan’s doctoral thesis explored the extent of change in discourses of mediated sport (and she revels in qualitative research).

Meghan also loves to trouble the ways people use and communicate with digital media and technologies. She is interested in the transformative power and consequences of computer-mediated communication and participatory culture. Her recent research explores communities collaborating in digital platforms including Tumblr and Twitter and crowdsourcing and citizen science best practices.