Below is a list of 13 current empirical research projects and themes that the School of Communication staff are inviting students to work on.
For their honours project, students can choose their own project or work on a project in the list below. In each case we advise them to discuss their options and ideas with a relevant supervisor before they apply.
#BlackOutTuesday and the Dynamics of Protest on Instagram
- Tisha Dejmanee, Digital and Social Media
This is a project exploring the visual, discursive and community construction of #BlackOutTuesday and other Instagram-based protests in response to contemporary iterations of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.
Data set. This project will collect a sample of Instagram posts connected to Black Lives Matter through the use of designated hashtags (e.g. #BlackOutTuesday; #BlackLivesMatter; #AmplifyMelanatedVoices).
Carbon Footprints of Digital Devices
- Ben Abraham, Digital and Social Media
This project looks at the carbon footprint of digital devices, with the aim of collecting data around the energy use and/or material construction of everyday digital media devices (laptops, computers, phones, game consoles, data centres, networking equipment, etc.) in order to measure the climate impact of various modern computing activities.
Criminal Characters: Investigating the lives of historical offenders in Australia
- Alana Piper, Social and Political Sciences
This research project (https://criminalcharacters.com/) aims to transform understandings of criminal offending by capturing the first large-scale data on the life histories and offending patterns of Australian criminals across a period extending from the end of the convict era to the beginning of the Second World War. This data will enable a number of new analyses across the fields of history, criminology and law through exploration of the various social, political, economic and environmental factors that influenced individuals' pathways into the criminal justice system across time.
Data set. The main dataset consists of transcribed prison records of men and women incarcerated in Victoria between the 1850s-1940s. Honours students would work with their supervisor to identify a sub-sample topic from this large dataset to explore (e.g. female prisoners with addiction issues, male prisoners who served in the military, prisoners convicted of a specific offence type e.g. poisoning, procuring abortion etc.).
Evaluating Strategic Communication during COVID-19
- Maureen Taylor and Jim Macnamara, Public Communication
This project builds on Dr. Taylor and Macnamara's work to support the World Health Organisation's response to COVID-19. Students can study WHO and other leading health organization's messaging around COVID-19 as well as public responses to the messaging.
Data set. Publicly available social media data, news media stories, and other data sets.
Expert Nation: Building Australia after the First World War
- Tamson Pietsch, Social and Political Sciences
The aim of this project is reconsider the ANZAC story and tell a new history of the First World War and its legacies. The First World War was a scientific war, and those soldiers who had a university degree played a crucial role in a range of fields, including chemical munitions, air craft detection, tunnelling, engineering, education and medicine. What did these soldier-students do on their return to Australia in the 1920s and 30s, and how did their experience help shape the new nation?
Data set. The project has constructed a dataset of all those who served in the First World War and had a university degree (approx.. 5000 people). Good information about their careers has been collected and cleaned. Sections of this data set can be exported (e.g. all those who studied engineering, or all those who attended the University of Queensland) and further qualitative as well as quantitative research and visualisations could be undertaken, as fits with the students’ interests.
Exploring young citizens’ engagement and disengagement in sustainability issues
- Soojin Kim, Public Communication
This project will explore young Australian citizens’ engagement or disengagement with sustainability-related issues that affect their future. Many young Australian citizens have yet to engage in conversations about the sustainability-related issues such as population, employment, housing, infrastructure, and environment. Yet, they are ones who will inherit this planet.
Data set. Students can collect data using interviews or surveys to further explore young Australians’ conception of sustainability and motivation to engage or disengage in sustainability-related issues.
LGBTQ+ young people, mental health and digital peer support
- Paul Byron, Digital and Social Media
This project engages with LGBTQ+ young people (16-25 years) and their supporters to produce an evidence base about LGBTQ+ young people’s digital peer support practices. This includes social media platforms used, networks and relationships involved, and details about 'influential peers' in this space. Data from surveys, interviews and digital ethnography will be used to establish a model of best practice digital peer support to inform current Australian mental health policy.
Data set. Students will scan key platforms and digital media sites identified by survey participants to map digital support practices and content among LGBTQ+ users in relation to mental health.
Living well with Land Rights: Opportunities for economic self-determination on the NSW Aboriginal Land Estate
- Heidi Norman and Therese Apolonio, Social and Political Sciences
This project investigates how Local Aboriginal Land Councils and Traditional Owners in NSW leverage communal land holdings for economic and community benefits.
Project 1. The study will involve a literature review and discourse analysis of Aboriginal employment in land management with reference to Commonwealth and NSW policies and programs
Project 2. This research will canvass a history of Aboriginal housing policy in NSW from 1970 to the present, by examining legislation, parliamentary records and news media.
Project 3. This project study will explore Aboriginal participation in the forestry industry with reference to formal agreements between Government and Aboriginal interest groups.
Project 4. This project examines the Aboriginal history of the Northern Tablelands drawing on oral histories and the historical archives available at the NSW Land Registry Service.
Mapping and Countering Hate Speech & Misinformation on Social Media
- Amelia Johns and Francesco Bailo, Digital and Social Media
This project maps hate speech/misinformation diffusions during the Australian bushfires and COVID-19.
Data set 1. We have developed an ethnographic map (https://wikiba.se/) comprising 50 days of field notes and URLS from observations of public Facebook pages and groups, Reddit and 4Chan forums, YouTube and Twitter. These have been labelled and coded to connect them thematically.
Data set 2. Twitter datasets for the bushfires (1.8 million) and for Covid-19 (5 million) that would suit network mapping and quantitative analysis.
Newsbots and Automated Journalism
- Heather Ford, Digital and Social Media
This project explores the role of newsbots (such as the ABC newsbot) in changing relationships between journalists and citizens. Building from an initial study conducted in 2018, there is an opportunity to develop further insights by interviewing/surveying/conducting diary studies with young Australian users of the ABC newsbot or by creating a newsbot for a local media company we are engaged in conversations with, and studying its reception.
Open Data in Practice
- Suneel Jethani, Digital and Social Media
This project builds on work studying open data practices in government and the private sector in Australia. Institutions in the public and private sector invest heavily in the provision of open data as part of mandated policy or as a means to foster civic engagement, entrepreneurialism or transparency. While costly and risk laden, the “value” and “impact” of open data is difficult to demonstrate given that open data is provided without the need to register for access or to attribute derivative works.
Data set. Students may draw on existing published open datasets on topics of their interest using either or both quantitative and qualitative methods.
Post-COVID-19 Global Health Governance
- Lai-Ha Chan, Social and Political Sciences
This project in on the politics of global health. The World Health Organization (WHO) has come to the fore in global public health crises but in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic it was criticized for being too ‘China-centric’ and was labelled the ‘Chinese Health Organization’. Countries are competing for developing the vaccine against the disease. What is the essence of the politics of global health? Is there a return to state-based international health governance from global health governance? Does the WHO fall under the sway of China? How do China and other great powers exert leverage over the UN organisation? These are some of the questions that students could explore.
Visual Language and Discourse in Post-Disaster Communication on Instagram
- Natalie Krikowa, Digital and Social Media and Kate Delmo, Public Communication
This project uses digital research methods to map the social media conversation space in Australia during the Black Summer Bushfires in NSW (2019-2020) by examining how Instagram was used as a platform for online discourse during this period. It then investigates how Instagram, primarily used by younger audiences, can be strategically utilised by agencies in post-disaster communications.
Data set. This project will collect a sample of Instagram posts connected to the Black Summer Bushfires through the use of designated hashtags (e.g. #bushfiresAustralia; #australianbushfires and #nswfires).