New Media and Public Communication (ARC Discovery)

New Media and Public Communication: Mapping Australian User-Created Content in Online Social Networks

Understanding the ways people contribute to and use the Internet for a wide range of purposes is important to Australia's future from both a social and an economic perspective. Effective, evidence-based policy depends on developing a vastly improved understanding of the current level of Australians' online activities and interests. This project provides crucial, detailed baseline data on the social, cultural and technological dynamics of Australian online public communication, which can inform further government initiatives to strengthen the country's digital economy and to maximise civic engagement through media participation.

ARC Discover Project, 2010-2012

Snurb — Wednesday 8 September 2010 09:16

Call for PhD Applications: ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation

CCi | New Media and Public Communication (ARC Discovery) | Research Projects |

It’s that time of the year again: my research centre, the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI), is calling for applications from prospective PhD students (and while this call focusses on PhDs, Masters and Honours applications are also due around the same time…). Undertaking your PhD at the CCI means you will be working with world class researchers who can offer supervision of the highest standards. Our research activities cover a broad range of emerging issues, themes and projects across the entertainment and creative industries including innovation and policy development; significant project collaborations with Asia …

» continue reading...
Snurb — Tuesday 27 July 2010 16:36

Mapping Online Publics

Blogs and Blogging | Social Media Network Mapping | New Media and Public Communication (ARC Discovery) |

Just a quick plug for yet another project blog: as regular readers of this blog may know, with my colleague Jean Burgess and our collaborators Lars Kirchhoff and Thomas Nicolai at Sociomantic Labs I was successful in winning an ARC Discovery grant in last year’s round, for a three-year project aiming to map public communication in Australia across a range of social media spaces.

With the project now getting underway in earnest (and we’ve already presented our methodology and early outcomes at a number of conferences), Jean and I have now set up Mapping Online Publics as a blog to cover our research methods and outcomes.

» continue reading...
Snurb — Saturday 10 July 2010 00:15

In Search of Australian Blogs: Determining the Extent of the Contemporary Australian Blogosphere (ANZCA 2010)

Blogs and Blogging | Social Media Network Mapping | New Media and Public Communication (ARC Discovery) | ANZCA 2010 |

ANZCA 2010

In Search of Australian Blogs: Determining the Extent of the Contemporary Australian Blogosphere

Axel Bruns, Jean Burgess

  • 8 July 2010 - ANZCA conference, Canberra
In Search of Australian Blogs: Determining the Extent of the Contemporary Australian Blogosphere

View more presentations from Axel Bruns.

Blogs, and the networked systems of blogging known as "blogospheres", are now part of the landscape of public communication in Australia. However, much of the research into Australian blogging has focussed only on selected genres and topics of blogging - political blogs (Bruns, 2008), personal diaries, knitting blogs (Humphreys, 2008), fiction blogs (Thomas, 2006) -, but is unable to provide a more comprehensive overview of the relative interest in and interconnections between these topics and communities. As part of a three-year ARC Discovery project that assesses the contribution of blogs and other forms of user-created content to public communication, this paper discusses the methodological challenges in developing a more comprehensive list of Australian blogs which may be used by researchers to study the Australian blogosphere in a more systematic and inclusive manner.

» continue reading...
Snurb — Tuesday 27 October 2009 18:19

Blog Mapping and Beyond...

Politics | Produsage Communities | Produsers and Produsage | Social Media Network Mapping | Produsage in Business | New Media and Public Communication (ARC Discovery) |

It's been a good week already - on Monday I've received notice that we've been successful with a major research grant application in this year's ARC Discovery round. The three-year project for which we're receiving $400,000 from the ARC, with my esteemed colleague Jean Burgess as the postdoc researcher, will extend the existing work on blog mapping which I've been engaged in for the past few years and take it to a new level - beyond capturing 'only' what happens in the Australian political blogosphere, we'll be working to get a much more comprehensive picture of Australian public …

» continue reading...
Snurb — Tuesday 27 October 2009 18:11

Tracking Social Media Participation: New Approaches to Studying User-Generated Content (JMRC)

Produsage Communities | Produsers and Produsage | Blogs and Blogging | Social Media Network Mapping | New Media and Public Communication (ARC Discovery) |

Journalism & Media Research Centre

Tracking Social Media Participation:


New Approaches to Studying User-Generated Content

Axel Bruns

  • 29 Oct. 2009, 11 a.m.-12.30 p.m. - PhD Seminar, Seminar Room, Journalism & Media Research Centre, 3-5 Eurimbla St (corner High St), Randwick, Sydney

Tracking Social Media Participation: New Approaches to Studying User-Generated Content

View more presentations from Axel Bruns.

The impact of user-generated content on a variety of media industries and practices is by now well understood from a conceptual perspective (e.g. Benkler 2006; Jenkins 2006; Bruns 2008). What remains less thoroughly explored is the possibility to utilise the affordances of Web 2.0 technologies themselves to generate large datasets that can be used to track and evaluate user participation practices in order to develop a solid evidence base for further research into social media, and further development of social media projects, technologies, and policies. This presentation outlines research possibilities across a number of social media spaces, and uses the example of a current research project studying the Australian political blogosphere to explore potential methodological approaches.

» continue reading...
New Media and Public Communication (ARC Discovery)