Are you a PhD student whose work investigates digital technology in contexts of teaching and learning? Apply for our symposium! We are primarily seeking in-person presenters but have limited online slots available if you can't make it to Melbourne. More info: redi.deakin.edu.au/2025/09/call...

Just a week to go until this wonderful event, hosted by my colleague Katrin Langton. Join us online or in-person. See link for registration.

Luxon himself handed me the Prime Minister's science prize last year. Let me say this in plain English: he's an idiot for running a govt who budgeted more for AI than for the Marsden fund. any journo reading this can quote me on it #nzpol

—Carry a notebook everywhere. —Print drafts out and edit by hand. —Read all the books remotely like the one you're trying to write and a bunch that are completely unrelated but which might help with form, tone or style. —Write all the words your damn self.

weather modelling remodelling the weather; bill murray put on blast by a gramophone; tiktok demanding your baby has more tummy time; all of Shrek in one gif - and that's just the morning keynote session! #AusSTS25 #signalsandnoises 📶

Testing out some new ideas with the lovely folks of #AusSTS25

Looking forward to being part of this panel next week –– come along or tune in online

not sure why everyone today is discovering this but i reported a month ago about how Meta's new AI's social feed was filled with people seemingly accidentally publicly sharing their private AI chats www.crikey.com.au/20...

Hey #ica25, The Australian Internet Observatory @internetobservatory.org.au is new national research infrastructure supporting researchers working in diverse digital platform research areas. For a glimpse into the planned capabilities: internetobservatory.net.au

Really chuffed our panel "Rupturing Digital Childhoods and Parenting in Australia? Social Media Bans, Privacy, Screen Time, and Generative AI" featuring Amanda Third, @katlangton.bsky.social, @katemannell.bsky.social, @suzesrdarov.bsky.social and me has been accepted for #AoIR2025! See you in 🇧🇷 !

Interesting editorial from my university's student guild newspaper's editorial team www.qutglass.com/a-real-world...

🚨 New Pub! 🚨 Our augmented reality museum installation about data surveillance & rights in Aotearoa NZ used by 128,000x visitors over 2 yrs — we interviewed visitors & present conclusions on how to get the public thinking about problematic technologies! doi.org/10.1145/3706... #OpenAccess #chi2025

Has anyone done or seen any work on the dating app Raya? I have a student who wants to do her verification case study on it, but she (nor I) can find any work on it.

It’s publication day for The Kids Are Online!!! 🥰 www.ucpress.edu/books/the-ki...

The NZ government has no conception of the difference between treating people equally and treating people equitably. e-tangata.co.nz/comment-and-...

A week to go until submissions close! Really looking forward to speaking at this – the program looks excellent so far and it's a great group of convenors. If you're considering submitting but feeling shy feel free to DM me

This article also serves as a kind of conceptual companion to my recently funded ARC DECRA on 'influencer journalists'. Can't wait to start this amazing 3-year project next year!!

On Day 1 a keynote panel at the NCM on infrastructures of noise with Dang Nguyen (RMIT) @digitaldang.bsky.social, Ranjodh Dhaliwal (University of Basel) @ranjodhdhaliwal.com, Kate Mannell (Deakin) @katemannell.bsky.social and Fabian Offert (UC Santa Barbara) @zentralwerkstatt.org 2/

The AusSTS 2025 cfp is closing soon - please get your ‘Signals and Noises’ in by Friday 14 March! It’s shaping up to be an amazing few days in Narrm across the National Communication Museum and Deakin Downtown, and we'll be welcoming some amazing keynote speakers and contributors, including... 1/

New paper from me and Lisa McDaid: "Informal digital peer support for mental health: understanding the digital support practices of LGBTQ+ young people in Australia" www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Looking forward to presenting at this next week. You can attend in person or online for free

📘 ICYMI our researchers launched a new book on platforms in families with collaborators overseas earlier this month digitalchild.org.au/platforms-in... @katemannell.bsky.social @deakinredi.bsky.social

The call for #AusSTS2025 is live - submit your proposals by 14 March to join us for #signalsandnoises, 9- 11 July. aussts.org/aussts-2025-...

New OA article - using data from the @admscentre.org.au Ad Observatory, we draw upon Zupančič and Rancière to analyse the role of conspirituality in online Facebook scams. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... Part of a cool new special issue of JoIT&P on the the future of conspiracy scholarship! 👌

A reminder that this is on Monday!

Happening next week! Join me online for this seminar on innovation nationalism and the colonial dynamics of new technology testbeds. I'll be discussing findings from my latest research on drone delivery testbeds in Australia. Link to register ⬇️ www.centrefordronesandculture.com/events/testi...

Hello, so, I'm an anthropologist who has studied wildfires for over a decade and, just recently, handed in a book manuscript for peer review on the pathologies of wildfire management in Australia and, to a lesser extent, Canada and the US. It's called "How to Control Fire" (TBC).

How is family life being ‘platformized’ and why does it matter? In our latest blog post, @katemannell.bsky.social outlines key arguments from a new open access book focused on the platformization of family life digitalchild.org.au/how-is-famil...

I'm sharing my submission in opposition to the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill 2025 in case it is useful. I've approached it through a health and Tau Iwi lens. www.ruthdesouza.com/2025/01/09/s...

Join us for an online launch on Jan 20th! We have a wonderful line up of speakers. Register here: www.uv.uio.no/iped/english...

Delighted to share that our new book ‘The platformization of the family: Towards a research agenda’ is out! Blog post here with more details and a link to the book (it’s open access): digitalchild.org.au/how-is-famil...

NEW: Apple's new AI features is rewording scam messages and emails to make them look more legitimate on Australians' iPhones and Macs, and even flagging them as priorities. This puts them at risk of a greater risk of being scammed, said one expert. www.crikey.com.au/20...

UniMelb has at least 14 staff with pay packets over $500k. That’s more than the Premier of Victoria. And yet all of our staff research and engagement budgets have been reduced to $0 in the Faculty of Arts this year www.smh.com.au/national/hig...

I grew up in a New Zealand town of 12,000 people. We were called "townies" by the country kids. You weren't from the country unless you were driving a ute around a paddock at 11 years old.

The odds are, they will let it fly, because drone delivery is a remarkably good quick fix for deeper issues in urban planning eg traffic congestion, non-walkable cities. This Wing x DoorDash business model was developed & refined in Australia where I did fieldwork theconversation.com/is-drone-del...

Phenomenal work by @samlai.bsky.social at CEIP - featuring my comments on public health communication in Vietnam and the persistence of legacy media infrastructure, in particular the loudspeaker network.

Things are getting pretty whacky

Folks from the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child @digitalchildau.bsky.social are slowly turning up here, so here's a smallish starter pack for now, but as new folks from the Centre arrive, ping me & I can add you: go.bsky.app/8RES29o

Over 250 Deans of Humanities (that’s subjects like History, Philosophy & languages like Te Reo & Chinese) & social sciences (subjects like economics /political science) strongly condemn the govt’s effective end to all humanities & social science research funding in NZ dassh.edu.au/deans-condem...

As many have noted, really devastating news from home with the gov cutting funding for humanities and social sciences research. Shout out to the science folks who've been vocal in the media about what a shitty decision this is (and bad for science too, actually).

“Is the internet good for children?” For those who missed my #DigitalFutures4Children public lecture with @LSEMedia.bsky.social @5RightsFound.bsky.social You can now watch or listen here Podcast www.lse.ac.uk/lse-player?i... Video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=U70X...

Has anyone written about social media and the shift toward content from accounts you don't follow. Obviously thinking of TikTok but also: Facebook putting 'Reels' in the newsfeed, scrolling Instagram Explore, maybe even the swipe-able YouTube Shorts feed. Am I imagining that this is a thing?

Tiny slice for the arts in Aotearoa #dataviz

Late onset FOMO about papers I didn't see. This looks great!

Thank you so much again to the #AANZCA24 organisers for the kind invitation to be one of the conference keynotes, and to the audience for their attention and great questions + feedback 🫶🏼

A really enriching #AANZCA24 as always. Love seeing the strong intergenerational tradition continue with so much wonderful work from PhD and Masters students. Big thanks to the organisers and my brilliant co-panelists ✨

Very excited to be at the Digital Parenting #AANZCA24 panel this morning! A stellar line-up of exciting papers coming out of the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child 🇦🇺

Fabulous (and timely) panel at #aanzca24 on digital parenting. Here @katemannell.bsky.social unpacks screen time discourse, key observation that while the field has largely settled the limitations of this concept, like many other media mythologies the discourse continues unabated in popular culture

Fantastic #aanzca24 plenary by @ysabel.bsky.social on the platform paradox which rejects the simplistic binary safe/unsafe framing of youth social media use. A powerful antidote to the polemic pop-psych airport book discourse. A great summary by @snurb.info over here: snurb.info/node/3260

Wonderful keynote from @ysabel.bsky.social about the paradoxes in young people's social media use. It's not 'benefits' or 'harms' – benefits and harms, pleasure and risk produce each other and can't be separated. Looking forward to the book! #aanzca2024