Hosted by the QUT Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC), the 2016 event will focus on digital methods for sociocultural research. It is designed for university researchers at all stages of their careers, from doctoral students, postdoctoral and mid-career academics to established scholars.

The week-long intensive program will focus on new quantitative, qualitative and data-driven digital methods and their research applications in the humanities and social sciences, with a particular focus on media, communication and cultural studies and their applications in the creative industries.

Participants will work with leading researchers, engage in hands-on workshop activities and will have the opportunity to present and get feedback on their own work.

The Summer School will offer a range of introductory hands-on workshops in topics such as:

• Digital ethnography
• Issue mapping
• Social media data analytics
• Software and mobile app studies
• Analysing visual social media
• Geo-spatial mapping
• Data visualisation
• Agent-based modelling
• Web scraping

The program will be conceptually grounded in the problems of public communication and privacy, digital media production and consumption, and the ethical issues associated with big data and digital methods in the context of digital media environments. There will be talks on these topics in addition to the workshops.

The first announcement of speakers and facilitators includes Associate Professor Kath Albury (University of New South Wales), Professor Axel Bruns (QUT Digital Media Research Centre), Professor Jean Burgess (QUT Digital Media Research Centre), Distinguished Professor Stuart Cunningham (QUT Digital Media Research Centre), Professor Terry Flew (QUT Digital Media Research Centre), Associate Professor Folker Hanusch (QUT Digital Media Research Centre), Professor Eszter Hargittai (Northwestern University), Dr Tim Highfield (QUT Digital Media Research Centre), Professor Larissa Hjorth (RMIT University), Dr Tama Leaver (Curtin University), Professor Ben Light (QUT Digital Media Research Centre), Professor Brian McNair (QUT Digital Media Research Centre), Dr Peta Mitchell (QUT Digital Media Research Centre), Professor Julian Thomas (Swinburne Institute for Social Research) and Associate Professor Patrik Wikström (QUT Digital Media Research Centre).

Please visit the #cciss16 Website for further information and application details.

Position Purpose

This appointment supports an ARC Future Fellowship research project investigating intermedia information flows in the Australian online public sphere. The emergence of new media forms has led to a profound transformation of the Australian media environment: mainstream, niche, and social media intersect in many ways, online and offline. Increased access to large-scale data on public communication online enables an observation of how the nation responds to the news of the day, how themes and topics unfold, and how interest publics develop and decline over time. This project uses such observations to trace how information flows across media spaces, and to develop a new model of the online public sphere. It makes significant contributions to innovation in research methods in the digital humanities, and provides an important basis for policies aimed at closing digital and social divides. Research on the project commenced in April 2014.

The Postdoctoral Research Fellow will contribute to project management and undertake specific research tasks and will also be involved in the supervision of one of the PhD students associated with the project. The position will be based at QUT in Brisbane, and will support the timely analysis of public communication activities which relate to current debates. The presence of this full-time staff member will ensure the project’s agility in responding to unfolding events, and substantially enhance its ability to engage in and impact on public debate over the lifetime of the Future Fellowship.

Selection Criteria

Essential:

1. Completion or partial completion of a postgraduate degree in Media and Communication or a closely related area, and relevant work experience as a researcher;
2. Demonstrated expertise in research on the contemporary public sphere and on information flows in online and social media, with substantial research outputs in quality conferences, journals, and edited books;
3. Demonstrated expert knowledge of, and experience with, qualitative and quantitative research which utilises innovative methods drawing on ‘big social data’ from social media and other relevant online sources;
4. Demonstrated advanced expertise in the use of network mapping and analytics techniques for the study of user interaction and information dissemination across social media and related networks;
5. Effective written, interpersonal and computer-mediated communication skills and experience in using project management tools;
6. Demonstrated relevant project coordination experience, and ability to work in a team and autonomously;
7. Demonstrated computing skills, including familiarity with digital research management and social media research tools.

Desirable:

1. Have prior university-based work experience;
2. Have an understanding of the strategic research agenda of the QUT Social Media Research Group and other relevant QUT research initiatives.

Specific Duties

The appointee will carry out a range of tasks associated with project activities, including:

• Use data collection and analysis methods and instruments developed for the project for a variety of purposes, including:
  • Post hoc research into user activity patterns and information flows in the Australian online public sphere across a wide range of cases;
  • Speedy and agile analysis of online activities in issue publics related to current events, and publication of initial analysis in relevant online fora;
  • Input into further development of online media tracking and analysis methods and instruments developed by the project.
• Contribute to the development of new models of communication processes in the Australian online public sphere, by:
  • Tracing the trajectories of intermedia information flows across the diverse datasets available to the project;
  • Developing and testing a range of preliminary models for the conceptualisation of issue publics and other formations of public discourse in online environments;
  • Contributing to the integration of these models into a more comprehensive framework for understanding processes of communication across the contemporary media ecology.
• Contribute to the dissemination of research findings from the project by:
  • Publishing preliminary analyses and findings in relevant outlets (The Conversation, project Website and other publications, etc.);
  • Presenting project findings at relevant national and international conferences in media and communication and related fields;
  • Publishing research outcomes from the project in sole- and collaboratively authored articles and chapters in high-profile journals and books.
• Participate in project management by:
  • Communicating with the research team, partner organisations and networks, and the wider public, in meetings, online, at events and in publications;
  • Maintaining and using communication and collaborative research tools for project management and coordination purposes;
  • contributing to the supervision of one of the PhD researchers associated with the project.

Background

This project is an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship project which draws on several ‘big data’ sources on Australian public communication. This appointment provides an unprecedented opportunity to investigate the flow of information across the Australian online public sphere at large scale and in close to real time, within a world-class research environment. With an ERA ranking of 5 (“well above world standing”), Creative Industries at QUT is the lead site for Media and Communication research in Australia, and ARC Future Fellow Professor Axel Bruns is an international research leader in the area of Internet studies.

The Creative Industries Faculty’s world class, industry-connected researchers undertake innovative applied and theoretical research in the media, creative arts and design, and QUT is home to some of the world’s best researchers in digital media, communication and culture, given the highest possible rating of 5 in both the 2010 and 2012 ERA rankings.

QUT’s Social Media Research Group is a global leader in social media research, and one of the main contributors to the University’s strength in Digital Media overall. Supported by several major research grants and strategic collaborations with industry, QUT researchers are investigating the use of social media in crisis communication, in news and politics, as a backchannel to television and other media, and in everyday life. We are leading methodological innovation by exploring the uses of ‘big data’ for studying major social media platforms, by integrating STS and software studies into our approaches to social media platforms, as well as by developing novel mixed-methods approaches that support critical and interpretative analysis.

We are seeking new PhD students to investigate topics such as:

1. The practices of sharing and engaging with mainstream media content through social media;
2. the history and political economy of social and mobile media platforms;
3. approaches to geomedia research, including locative and geosocial media;
4. the structures and effects of follower networks in Australian social media spaces, using social network analysis methods;
5. the consequences of emerging online platforms on the production and consumption of culture;
6. new methods to generate quantitative metrics that describe activity patterns in social media datasets;
7. agent-based simulation approaches for the analysis of networked co-creation of culture;
8. critical and interpretive approaches to user engagement and evaluation practices;
9. cross-platform flows of media content, data and cultural practices;
10. uses, meanings and implications of mobile relationship and dating apps;
11. the making and circulation of gender and sexuality with networked media.

Potential supervisors include:

• Prof. Axel Bruns
• Assoc. Prof. Jean Burgess
• Dr. Stephen Harrington
• Prof. Ben Light
• Dr. Peta Mitchell
• Assoc. Prof. Patrik Wikström

If you are interested in applying, please contact Axel Bruns a.bruns@qut.edu.au or Jean Burgess je.burgess@qut.edu.au, in addition to following the processes below.

How to Apply

• PhD program
• Doctor of Creative Industries program

Information on the University’s Annual Scholarship Round can be found here.

Closing date: 30th September 2014 (earlier enquiries strongly encouraged).

Further information about the Faculty’s research can be found here.

Looking for a supervisor? Please view our Academic Staff profiles here.

Any Questions?

Contact the Creative Industries Faculty HDR support team at ci.hdr@qut.edu.au or phone +617 3138 3799 or 3138 8591.

For now, though, here’s an overview of the conference papers we’ll be presenting at AoIR and elsewhere. We’ll post slides and papers as we can.

Association of Internet Researchers conference, Denver, 24-27 Oct. 2013:

• Panel: Social Media and Elections: The Use of Twitter in the 2013 Campaigns in Italy, Australia, Germany, and Norway(24 Oct. 2013, 13:40-15:10, in Horace Tabor)
  • Axel Bruns, Tim Highfield, and Theresa Sauter: “#ausvotes Mark Two: Twitter in the 2013 Australian Federal Election”
• Session: Collaboration and Communication Online(24 Oct. 2013, 15:30-17:00, in Molly Brown)
  • Tim Highfield: “News via Voldemort: The Role of Parody and Satire in Topical Discussions on Twitter”
• Session: Fans and Audiences(25 Oct. 2013, 10:00-11:30, in Molly Brown)
  • Katrin Weller and Axel Bruns: “Friends or Followers? The Relations between German Soccer Clubs and Their Fans on Twitter”
• Panel: Celebrity Crises on Twitter (25 Oct. 2013, 12:50-14:20, in Confluence C):
  • Tim Highfield: “Appropriating Breaking News? The Evolving TwitterCoverage of the Lance Armstrong Doping Scandal”
  • Ana Vimieiro and Renato Vimieiro: “Oscar Pistorius and the Death of Reeva Steenkamp: Mapping Public Opinions on TwitterUsing Frame Analysis and Data Mining”
  • Theresa Sauter and Axel Bruns: “#Pontiff-Ex: The Twitter Community’s Reaction to the Papal Resignation”
• Session: Power and Game Design(25 Oct. 2013, 14:40-16:10, in Confluence B)
  • John Banks and Darryl Woodford: “Social Media, Data Analytics and Videogames Development: Halfbrick Case Study”
• Panel: Social Media in Crisis Communication(25 Oct. 2013, 14:40-16:10, in Platte River)
  • Axel Bruns, Jean Burgess, and Avijit Paul: “Cumulative and Comparative Social Media Analytics for Crisis Communication”
• Panel: Enacting Conflict, Controversy, and Aggression in Online Spaces(26 Oct. 2013, 10:40-12:10, in Lawrence A)
  • Theresa Sauter and Axel Bruns: “Exploring Emotions on #auspol: Polarity, Conservativism and Public Performance in the Twitter Debate on Australian Politics”
• Roundtable and Book Launch: Twitter and Society and Beyond(26 Oct. 2013, 13:30-15:00, in Confluence B)
  • Jean Burgess, Axel Bruns, and Tim Highfield, with many other Twitter and Society editors and contributors
• Panel: Slicing Big Data(26 Oct. 2013, 13:30-15:00, in Confluence C)
  • Darryl Woodford: “Twitter, Gambling and Time Sensitive Information”
  • Avijit Paul: “Extracting Important Information from a Social Network Stream during Crisis”

Compromised Data? New Paradigms in Social Media Theory and Methods colloquium, Toronto, 28-29 Oct. 2013

• Paper: Jean Burgess and Axel Bruns: “Easy Data, Hard Data? TwitterResearch and the Politics of Data Access”
• Sky Croeser and Tim Highfield: “Mapping Movements, Social Movement Research and Big Data: Critiques and Alternatives”

Uses Across Media: Co-Creation and Participation symposium, Copenhagen, 30-31 Oct. 2013

• Axel Bruns: “Produsage Revisited”

Digital Methods: Innovative Ansätze zur Analyse öffentlicher Kommunikation im Internet conference, Vienna, 7-9 Nov. 2013

• Axel Bruns and Theresa Sauter: “Anatomie eines Trending Topics: Retweet-Ketten als Verbreitungsmechanismus für aktuelle Ereignisse”

See you on the road!

A little background to get us started: QUT is the leading research university in Australia in the field of media and communication research, as one of only two universities in Australia which were awarded the highest possible rating – well above world standard – for this field of research in the Australian federal government’s Excellence in Research Australia assessment exercises in both 2010 and 2012. Digital and social media play an especially important role in this research field, of course, and much of the research which examines their uses and their impact on society takes place in the Creative Industries Faculty, not least also through the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI)which is headquartered at QUT – but we also work closely with our colleagues in other QUT Faculties as well as with a large network of colleagues around the world.

Our activities cut across a wide range of social media tools and platforms, from the market leaders Facebook and Twitter to popular content sharing sites such as YouTube, Flickr, and Instagram, and on to collaborative knowledge bases like Wikipedia. We study such platforms – and the wider collaborative and communicative activities which they represent – from a number of angles, including close qualitative readings and in-depth ethnographic studies as well as innovative quantitative analyses which consider such sites as a source of ‘big data’; importantly, too, our interest is in understanding these platforms as emerging, evolving, dynamic sociotechnical spaces which are embedded in a wider media ecology that is itself dynamic and never settles into a stable equilibrium for long.

At the moment, the SMRG team includes some two dozen research staff and higher degree research students, and the material already published on this Website will give you a first flavour of the various research activities which we’re pursuing at this point. Over the coming months, we’ll be sure to feature an even greater range of current student and staff projects, and we’re always very interested in your feedback and any further opportunities for collaboration. Do get in touch, and remember to subscribe to the RSS feed, follow our Twitter account at @socialmediaQUT, and check back regularly for further updates.

On behalf of the QUT Social Media Research Group,

Axel Bruns
Associate Professor,  Media & Communication

This introductory short course offers an overview of social media tools and how they are used to promote issues and agendas.  We go through the dos and don’ts of using social media for professional communication.

This course is open to anyone interested in understanding Facebook, Twitter and LinkedInfor their organisation or for individual practice.  This course is particularly relevant for staff who work as social media managers or officers for their organisations.

June 2013 course dates:

• Wednesday 5 June: 6 pm – 9 pm
• Wednesday 12 June: 6 pm – 9 pm
• Wednesday 19 June: 6 pm – 9 pm

Please click on the following link to Register.

https://www.qut.edu.au/study/short-courses-and-professional-development/short-courses/introduction-to-social-media

Our advanced social media short course ‘Social Media Marketing Tools for Business’ will be open for registration soon—commencement date 26th June, 2013 running for 3 Wednesday evenings.

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: CCI Winter School 2013

https://www.cciwinterschool.org

DEADLINE: 18 January 2013

Building on the widely-acknowledged success of last year’s inaugural CCI Winter School, we now invite applications for 2013. The CCI Winter School is a competitive program that offers selected doctoral students a week-long program of interdisciplinary study, collaboration and social interaction in the broad area of creative industries and innovation research, drawing on the Centre’s expertise in media, cultural and communication studies, economics, education, policy and law, in relation to the creative economy.

We welcome applications from emerging scholars working on related topics including, but not limited to:

* Cultural, media and creative industries policy

* Digital methods

* Community arts and media

* New business models in the creative economy

* Innovation studies

* Economics of the creative industries

* Game studies

* The creative industries in Asia

* Internet culture

* Social media

* Copyright and intellectual property

* The challenges of ‘big data’

* Creative careers and creative labour

Participants will work with leading researchers, engage in intensive workshop activities and receive direct feedback and individual mentoring on their own work. Social activities will provide additional opportunities for participants to get to know each other and form collaborative relationships that will last for years to come.

24 – 28 June 2013

APPLY at https://www.cciwinterschool.org

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/_CCI

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/pages/ARC-Centre-of-Excellence-for-Creative-Industries-and-Innovation/170588955734