Research output per year
Research output per year
Accepting PhD Students
My research concerns the politics and ethics of existence in online spaces, with particular emphasis on the exploitation and monetisation of language by digital technology companies. Beginning with my PhD research critiquing the power held by Google’s search and advertising platforms, my work has always been around the changing values of language in a digital age, and I’ve used various creative and performative methods to do that in the past. My concerns are that when language is turned into data for storage or dissemination online, like all data it gains an economic value that negates and usurps the creative, the poetic, or the human value of the original words. That economic value is extracted by big tech companies such as Google, X, Meta, Amazon and now the AI behemoths such as OpenAI and Anthropic, which leaves us with the empty husks of language – the linguistic detritus that fills our search results with rubbish, boosts fake news stories, and now spews out AI nonsense generated using the stolen creative content of human authors without their knowledge or consent. Turning language into data, giving it economic value beyond its context and processing it through algorithmic systems designed specifically to make money for private companies is downright dangerous. Methodologically, I specialise in using artistic / creative intervention as a means of disseminating my work beyond academia.
Geopolitics & Cybersecurity, Doctor in Philosophy, Language in the Age of Algorithmic Reproduction: A Critique of Linguistic Capitalism, Royal Holloway University of London
Sept 2013 → Feb 2019
English, Master of Arts, Kings College London
2010 → 2012
English Literature, Bachelor of Arts, Open University
1999 → 2005
Arts, History & Politics, Bachelor of Arts, University of Liverpool
1992 → 1995
Research output: Non-textual form › Exhibition
Research output: Non-textual form › Performance
Thornton, P. (Invited speaker)
Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Public Engagement – Festival/Exhibition
Thornton, P. (Advisor)
Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Public Engagement – Festival/Exhibition
Thornton, P. (Speaker)
Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Public Engagement – Festival/Exhibition
Thornton, P. (Chair and Invited Speaker)
Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Public Engagement – Festival/Exhibition
Thornton, P. (Participant)
Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Public Engagement – Festival/Exhibition
Thornton, P. (Recipient), 2021
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)
Thornton, P. (Recipient), 2022
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)
Thornton, P. (Principal Investigator) & Cresswell, T. (Co-investigator)
Arts and Humanities Research Council
1/05/24 → 31/10/25
Project: Research
Thornton, P. (Principal Investigator)
Project: Research
Thornton, P. (Principal Investigator)
Project: Research
Thornton, P. (Principal Investigator), Elsden, C. (Co-investigator) & Speed, C. (Co-investigator)
1/09/20 → 30/11/21
Project: Research
29/01/24
1 Media contribution
Press/Media: Public Engagement Activities