My teaching principles

My teaching focuses on facilitating students’ discovery of strategic opportunities for making principled communication choices. I emphasise theory as the means by which scholars debate the persuasiveness of various explanations of social action. I position practice as engaging with the crafting and control of meaning. I aim to develop students’ skills in rigorous qualitative micro-analysis of communicative situations and also their practical skills in expressing findings. As much as possible, I bring in my own finished and unfinished research as an exemplar of topics, theories, methods, and findings.

Courses I am teaching in 2012

Semester 2, 2012

• JOUR2722: Convergence in the Media (To be renamed and fully revised)

Semester 1, 2012

• COMU1010: The Art of Communication
• ENGL6085: Honours Research Methods and Project Management

Current Courses I teach at UQ

Gateway courses that I coordinate

• COMU1010: The Art of Communication: Every aspect of the social world as you know it is a result of communicative craft, control, and choice. Communication is much more than simple information transfer, it is social action undertaken for a purpose. You can just listen, or you can have a voice. This introductory course provides the fundamental building blocks for both professional and scholarly work in communication fields. It shows how communication is the work of making meaning in context, building the social world in the moment and over time. Communication theory is introduced as the practical toolbox from which to draw explanations or predictions of social action. Communication is essential to a wide range of occupations. As such, this course (and, indeed, a Communication degree or major) is a practical complement to virtually any other field, from the social (Arts, Business, Government, Law, and the Social Sciences) to the technical (Engineering, IT, and the Life Sciences). COMU1010 is a required core course in the Bachelor of Communication, and is a required course in the Bachelor of Arts Communication, Media & Cultural Studies major and the English Language & Communication major. It may be taken as an elective.

Gateway courses that I teach into/guest lecture

• COMU1000: Introduction to Communication and Cultural Studies
• MSTU1010: Introduction to Creative Thought and Practice

Keystone courses that I coordinate

• JOUR2722: Convergence in the Media: This course is being redeveloped for 2012 to concentrate on social media strategies and toolkits for journalists and public relations professionals.
• COMU2002: Talk, Interaction, and Technology: Does technology change the way we talk? This course explores (1) how interaction is a collaborative achievement by people to make sense of the social world and (2) how Communication Technologies (such as Mobile Phones, Email, Instant Messaging, Skype, Facebook, and Twitter) afford and constrain interaction. The goal of the course is to provide students with a strategic approach to the choices involved in (1) face-to-face talk and (2) using Communication Technologies for social interaction. This course is of value to all professionals, but especially communication researchers, professional communicators (PR, Journalists, Advisors/Consultants), and usability-oriented Communication Technology developers.

Keystone courses that I teach into/guest lecture

• COMU2000: Communication & Rhetoric
• MSTU2004: New Media: Ideas & Uses

Capstone Courses

• COMU3006: Language in Context: This capstone course challenges students to critically engage with the Communication discipline in three ways: research, practice, and presentation. This course is of value to all professionals, but especially language and communication teachers, professional communicators (PR, Journalists, Advisors/Consultants), and communication researchers. The goal of course is to provide students with a strategic approach to the practice and training of Communication in context.

Honours courses that I teach into/guest lecture

• ENGL6085: Honours Research Methods and Project Management: This course provides practical skills for research in Communication, Media Studies, and Cultural Studies (including Film and Television). The course trains students to understand their project as a dialogue with their field, the epistemological underpinnings of empirical research, and the practical issues of linking research interests to data collection and analysis.

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