Valuing Web Series: Economic, Industrial, Cultural and Social Value. This project investigates the value of web series as a form of online screen entertainment characterised by original and diverse content produced by emerging creatives. It will deploy the theoretical frame of ‘total value’ to assess the role and viability of web series: value accrued as career development opportunities for digital content makers; value accrued by the audiences who consume web series; and the value accrued by t ....Valuing Web Series: Economic, Industrial, Cultural and Social Value. This project investigates the value of web series as a form of online screen entertainment characterised by original and diverse content produced by emerging creatives. It will deploy the theoretical frame of ‘total value’ to assess the role and viability of web series: value accrued as career development opportunities for digital content makers; value accrued by the audiences who consume web series; and the value accrued by the Australian screen industry as web series contribute to innovation in a rapidly evolving global screen ecology. We have partnered with four leading web series festivals who will benefit directly from a hosting a number of forums for the discussion and dissemination of our comparative findings.Read moreRead less
Wikipedia and the nation’s story: Towards equity in knowledge production. As the world’s largest source of public information, Wikipedia is a crucial site in which national stories are made. This project aims to institute a critical approach to understanding Wikipedia by investigating how it produces knowledge in its coverage of Australian historic events. The project expects to advance digital media studies, utilizing an innovative conceptual approach to undertake the first systematic examinati ....Wikipedia and the nation’s story: Towards equity in knowledge production. As the world’s largest source of public information, Wikipedia is a crucial site in which national stories are made. This project aims to institute a critical approach to understanding Wikipedia by investigating how it produces knowledge in its coverage of Australian historic events. The project expects to advance digital media studies, utilizing an innovative conceptual approach to undertake the first systematic examination of events from a national perspective. Expected outcomes include an expanded evaluation framework and an international research collaboration. This should provide significant benefits, building research capacity and creating tools to help generate more equitable coverage for millions of users in Australia and beyond.Read moreRead less
Using machine vision to explore Instagram’s everyday promotional cultures. The advertising-driven business models of social media platforms increasingly depend on automation. The technologies used by platforms are rapidly advancing, and include ‘machine vision’ systems that automatically classify faces, expressions, objects, and brand logos in images. The results are used to provide targeted content to users, often without their knowledge and without sufficient public oversight. Using a novel co ....Using machine vision to explore Instagram’s everyday promotional cultures. The advertising-driven business models of social media platforms increasingly depend on automation. The technologies used by platforms are rapidly advancing, and include ‘machine vision’ systems that automatically classify faces, expressions, objects, and brand logos in images. The results are used to provide targeted content to users, often without their knowledge and without sufficient public oversight. Using a novel combination of computational and cultural research methods, this project aims to: examine how machine vision works in platforms like Instagram; explore its role in everyday visual contexts through qualitative case studies of festivals, food, and lifestyle sports; and improve public understanding of machine vision systems.Read moreRead less
Young Australians and the promotion of alcohol on social media. This project aims to determine how young people engage with alcohol and nightlife marketing on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. Companies now leverage the power of social media to create advertisements that are made and shared by young people, targeted to them in particular times, places and contexts, and are thus difficult to monitor and regulate. The project will use computational, big social data app ....Young Australians and the promotion of alcohol on social media. This project aims to determine how young people engage with alcohol and nightlife marketing on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. Companies now leverage the power of social media to create advertisements that are made and shared by young people, targeted to them in particular times, places and contexts, and are thus difficult to monitor and regulate. The project will use computational, big social data approaches and youth informants to assess the pervasiveness of branding on social media and how it shapes youth cultures. This work will extend media and cultural studies and support the development of effective monitoring and regulation of online marketing in general, with a particular focus on alcohol.Read moreRead less
Digital photography: mediation, memory and visual communication. This project aims to address the social impact of major shifts in the production, distribution, viewing and storage of photographic images which have profoundly altered their everyday use. By adopting an interdisciplinary, user-centred approach to digitally networked photography, the project will provide a more holistic understanding of how photographs mediate communication, sociality and memory in the present. Expected outcomes i ....Digital photography: mediation, memory and visual communication. This project aims to address the social impact of major shifts in the production, distribution, viewing and storage of photographic images which have profoundly altered their everyday use. By adopting an interdisciplinary, user-centred approach to digitally networked photography, the project will provide a more holistic understanding of how photographs mediate communication, sociality and memory in the present. Expected outcomes include generating original empirical data, building international collaboration, and creating a new conceptual framework for assessing contemporary photographic practices. The research will provide community benefit by enabling insight into the social and ethical tensions affecting photography in the present.
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Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE190100789
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$401,808.00
Summary
Social media influencers as conduits of knowledge in Australia and Asia. This project aims to evaluate how social media influencers can become conduits to communicate information among young people between Australia and East Asia. As icons on the internet who are experts in holding attention and amplifying content, influencers have expanded from being mere commercial enterprises to being conduits of public service information by reaching wide, diverse, and sometimes marginalised youth audiences ....Social media influencers as conduits of knowledge in Australia and Asia. This project aims to evaluate how social media influencers can become conduits to communicate information among young people between Australia and East Asia. As icons on the internet who are experts in holding attention and amplifying content, influencers have expanded from being mere commercial enterprises to being conduits of public service information by reaching wide, diverse, and sometimes marginalised youth audiences with important socio-cultural messages. This project will glean lessons from leading influencer ecologies in East Asia (Seoul, Shanghai and Tokyo), to understand how we can use internet-native communication formats to improve inter-cultural knowledge and relations in Australia.Read moreRead less
Chinese-language digital/social media in Australia. This project aims to study the production, content and use of digital/social media by mainland Chinese migrants in Australia. China’s global rise has generated widespread anxiety about its possible use of diasporic Chinese media to influence the world. This project expects to generate a new framework for analysing soft power and propaganda in digital/social media, while also undertaking a major rethinking of the concept of flexible citizenship. ....Chinese-language digital/social media in Australia. This project aims to study the production, content and use of digital/social media by mainland Chinese migrants in Australia. China’s global rise has generated widespread anxiety about its possible use of diasporic Chinese media to influence the world. This project expects to generate a new framework for analysing soft power and propaganda in digital/social media, while also undertaking a major rethinking of the concept of flexible citizenship. The study will produce a more accurate assessment of China’s influence through migrant media in Australia and elsewhere.Read moreRead less
Special Research Initiatives - Grant ID: SR200200604
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$125,000.00
Summary
Extremism and the Australian National Imaginary. The project will use innovative temporal methods to assess the influence of extreme nationalist discourses on mainstream political discussion in Australia. It will develop computational tools to unpick the relationship between digital media, speed and increasing polarisation in political discourse. Expected outcomes include a dataset describing extreme discourses in Australia, an empirical evaluation of the influence of extremism within mainstream ....Extremism and the Australian National Imaginary. The project will use innovative temporal methods to assess the influence of extreme nationalist discourses on mainstream political discussion in Australia. It will develop computational tools to unpick the relationship between digital media, speed and increasing polarisation in political discourse. Expected outcomes include a dataset describing extreme discourses in Australia, an empirical evaluation of the influence of extremism within mainstream publics, and the development of software, methods and a collaborative framework to support research excellence. Expected outcomes include training governmental and non-governmental advocates and policy makers seeking to address extremism for a socially cohesive Australia. Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE220100500
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$424,652.00
Summary
Measuring social media speed and the acceleration of informational crisis. The project aims to investigate the role that time plays in the production of misinformation on social media. The speed of digital communication is frequently implicated in destabilising the reasoned discussion upon which democracy depends. However, the temporal study of the internet is hampered by a contradiction in time theory between mathematical-scientific time and intuitive-social time. This project advances a theore ....Measuring social media speed and the acceleration of informational crisis. The project aims to investigate the role that time plays in the production of misinformation on social media. The speed of digital communication is frequently implicated in destabilising the reasoned discussion upon which democracy depends. However, the temporal study of the internet is hampered by a contradiction in time theory between mathematical-scientific time and intuitive-social time. This project advances a theoretical solution to this problem and aims to measure the production of time online, developing digital methods to fulfil this purpose. A better understanding of the relationship between time and communication could support strategies to counter misinformation and promote better informed and more consensual discourse.
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Fashioning Fiji: Investigating Creative Industries in a Developing Context. Governments, NGOs and other entities have turned their attention to the creative industries as an alternative space for national economic development. This project focuses upon the development and growth of the Fijian fashion industry across national (Suva), regional (Sydney and Auckland) and global (London) sites. It explores this growth in relation to three key factors: the integration of technology in the processes of ....Fashioning Fiji: Investigating Creative Industries in a Developing Context. Governments, NGOs and other entities have turned their attention to the creative industries as an alternative space for national economic development. This project focuses upon the development and growth of the Fijian fashion industry across national (Suva), regional (Sydney and Auckland) and global (London) sites. It explores this growth in relation to three key factors: the integration of technology in the processes of design and production; the use of digital and social media to build and expand markets; and capacity building for fashion entrepreneurs. Using digital ethnography and anthropological approaches, this study analyses how creative industries can be supported and sustained in developing contexts.Read moreRead less