Research

I help people understand communication technology choices

My research focuses on how the affordances and constraints of communication technologies interact with language, social action, and culture. My teaching focuses on facilitating students’ discovery of strategic opportunities for making principled communication choices.

I work as a Lecturer in Strategic Communication in the School of Journalism and Communication at The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.

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My specialisation is in the relationship between technology and practices of interaction and social presence. I have investigated videochat, Instant Messaging, online forums, and other platforms in contexts ranging from the personal to the institutional.

I am especially interested in how people deal with trouble arising from communication technology, ranging from design difficulties, through operational problems, to the separation of interactional perspectives. My interests also extend to social media strategy, internet culture, and social representations of communication technologies. I am also interested more broadly in language and social interaction, especially strategic interaction, persuasive presentations using slideware and video, and interpersonal interaction.

Topics

Computer-mediated communication (videoconferencing, video chat, video calling, Skype, iChat, instant messaging and chat, AIM, ICQ, email, messageboards, forums), social media (Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare), Internet culture (memes, trends, virtual worlds), telehealth, telerehabilitation, human-computer-interaction, usability, user experience, interaction, talk, conversation, relationships, friends, couples, presentations, slideware, public speaking.

Research and Teaching Interests

Communication technology, strategic design, and professional practice

Social presence; interaction; design; telerehabilitation and telehealth

Social media and strategy

Social media; design and branding; online self-presentation; campaigns; reputation management; astroturfing; automated identity; internet culture; memes; viral media; intellectual property, creativity, and copyright; technology policy and law

Persuasive professional communication

Personal and public pitches; rhetoric and argument; technology and presentation (slideware, video, and pre-, medial-, and post-presentation social media strategy)

New models of journalism

Online citizen journalism; pro-am journalism; technology and journalism

Communication theory and contexts

Models of communication, science, interpersonal, intercultural, gender, organisational

Qualitative research methods

Ethnomethodology; Conversation Analysis; Membership Categorisation Analysis; Ethnography; Discourse analysis; Computer-Aided Qualitative Discourse Analysis