Edward Hurcombe

A branded tile with an orange and black logo for 3C. The black silhouette of a woman, seen from the side, with white vapour steaming from her nose and mouth, set against a scarlet red background. The text says "New Research" and "Micallef, D., Hurcombe, E., & Feng, J. (2025). Long live Darth Vapour! Examining how audiences engage with influencers in an anti-vaping campaign. Journalism Studies, 51(5), 102633”.

Check out the latest issue of Public Relations Review for an article by 3C’s David Micallef and Juan Feng with @eddyhurc.bsky.social (also from RMIT University): “Long live Darth Vapour! Examining how audiences engage with influencers in an anti-vaping campaign”: doi.org/10.1016/j.pu...

In the article, we conceptualise this 'translation' of campaign messages as 'vernacular authentication'. Here it is described in more detail:

This campaign was characterised by the relative creative freedom provided to various kinds of influencers - nano, mid, and macro. Influencers responded by creating innovative and at times chaotic videos that responded to the tastes of their distinct sub-cultural audiences.

Long live Darth Vapour! Examining how audiences engage with influencers in an anti-vaping campaign Social media influencers (SMIs) have become role models for younger audiences, making them important stakeholders for engaging young people with healt…

So cool to see this article out by me and @juanfeng.bsky.social and @saysdavid.bsky.social!

It's about how audiences on Instagram responded to a government-backed anti-vaping campaign that employed influencers.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

How to report on neo-Nazis without giving them what they want Media coverage of the anti-immigration marches was a 'propaganda triumph' for Australian neo-Nazis, who use media-baiting tactics to spread their message.

🚨I spoke to Crikey for this story on the need for better media reporting on the far right!

Long story short: stop giving neo-Nazis propaganda wins

www.crikey.com.au/2025/09/05/h...

Love this opening! And so exciting!!

Very excited to share that my book, The Discursive-Digital Link, is now available for pre-order on Routledge: tinyurl.com/the-ddl. The e-book is already available to order with a 30% discount!
You can also read the synopsis and the Introduction chapter on my website: essideh.com/ddl/

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Come and join our research network - reading group, grant proposal support, visiting scholars and industry events to come!

It was awesome to run our first reading group of the newly established @ntsnetwork.bsky.social! Great to have some time in our busy schedules for thought-provoking discussions about new research

(also, you should write about this btw lol)

This captures exactly why I enjoy these games so much. Just mucking around with friends in a low-budget janky game, breaking it at the seams and goofing about

Australia backs US strikes on Iran while urging return to diplomacy Penny Wong says action to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon was acceptable, but that talks should now resume.

Absolutely pathetic. @australianlabor.bsky.social just rubber-stamps every violent whim of a decaying empire. Backing US airstrikes like obedient lapdogs. No debate. No soul. Just spineless war-mongering dressed up as “strategy.” We deserve so much better.
www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06...

This has been my experience as well!

In the age of the influencer, does the political backing of News Corp matter anymore? Despite backing from the Murdoch-owned papers, the Coalition didn’t win the election. But it’s more complicated than simply old media versus new media.

I just wrote a new article for the Conversation! It's about how the Australian media landscape is changing, but also how politicians and legacy media are innovating to reach young people.

theconversation.com/in-the-age-o...

Finally!! Congrats Damien

Glad you liked the paper! It's a really interesting space - your PhD looks super topical as well!

We are especially interested in how Meta's problem framings support certain 'solutions'. Overall, we find that Meta, on its main company blog, tended to frame problems in ways that benefited the company, by shifting responsibility while also showing that Meta was a capable problem-solver.

Our article 'The discursive function of the Meta Newsroom' is out!

In it, me, @essideh.com, @voddenlaura.bsky.social, and @antmandan.bsky.social examine how Meta's blog framed issues to do with mis/disinfo, hate speech, etc on Meta platforms during 2016-2021.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Meta is abandoning fact checking – this doesn’t bode well for the fight against misinformation Numerous studies have shown that fact checking has helped reduce the spread of misinformation and disinformation online.

Some reflections with colleagues @nedwatt.bsky.social and @riedlinm.bsky.social at @theconvo-bot.bsky.social on Meta's decision to end its professionally funded fact-checking model in its platforms and adopt the X crowdsourcing model with a new 'community notes'👇 theconversation.com/meta-is-aban...

Make no mistake, colleagues: the exclusion of humanities & social science research from national competitive funding could easily happen here in Australia. The signs & actors are already clear. We let it happen at our collective peril.

Responding to the Online Safety Amendment Bill 2024 Social Media Minimum Age

140 Experts say banning people under 16 from social media won't make social media safe

children have a right to be online and have fun, positive, educational, and safe experiences.

We should be enabling Australian children and teens to be full, articulate, deeply literate digital citizens.

It's been really heartening working with @dezuanni.bsky.social, @aleeshajoy.bsky.social and Amanda Levido to produce the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child's response to the Social Media Ban for Under16s Bill that was tabled yesterday.

digitalchild.org.au/research/pub...

After The Election, Leftist Influencers Are At A Crossroads - Aftermath Joe Rogan – the man and the cultural phenomenon – is not something you can simply grow in a tube. But cries for a liberal Joe Rogan elide a more salient point: There is already a left-leaning content ...

Also lots of online discourse going on about whether the 'left' needs its own news influencer sphere (there sort of already is one, albeit with less money and reach)

aftermath.site/twitch-youtu...

America’s News Influencers This study explores the makeup of the social media news influencer universe, including who they are, what content they create and who their audiences are.

Interesting to see more attention being paid to 'news influencers' post- US election! Keen to start doing this kind of systematic research beyond the US

www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2...

It's really hard to overstate how many world-leading experts on digital media and social media are at Australian universities (I work with many of them!), and the overwhelming majority of them will tell you the social media ban is a bad and counterproductive idea.

Labor's plan to cap international student enrolments from next year appears doomed after Coalition vows to block The Coalition has announced it will oppose the government's bill to limit the number of international students able to enrol from next year, just weeks out from when the caps were meant to come into f...

lmao get absolutely owned, Albo. Good thing no university had already started its austerity budget and staff cuts in preparation for this policy 🤪 www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11...

How does #polarisation manifest in media & communication at breaking points? Our new article identifies 5 key symptoms of destructive polarisation🔓: rb.gy/fp5akv
@icsjournal.bsky.social
T. Choucair, @vilkins.bsky.social , @svegaard.bsky.social, @snurb.bsky.social, C. Lubicz, K. O'Connor Farfan

It finally considers whether the ‘authentic’ and relational aspects of ‘newsfluencers’ can help make journalism more accessible to young audiences, or whether these characteristics are irreconcilable with journalistic accuracy and impartiality.

Within this context, I examine the rise of ‘newsfluencers’: platformatised news content creators who operate according to the economic and cultural logics of online influencers. Newsfluencers include YouTubers, TikTokers, and Twitch streamers, Substack writers, and self-employed journalists.

This article also serves as a kind of conceptual companion to my recently funded ARC DECRA on 'influencer journalists'. Can't wait to start this amazing 3-year project next year!!

Conceptualising the “Newsfluencer”: Intersecting Trajectories in Online Content Creation and Platformatised Journalism Journalists and other news content creators are negotiating with participatory platforms and entrepreneurial business models. This conceptual article defines and traces the rise of “newsfluencers”:...

Proud to announce that my conceptual piece on 'newsfluencers' is out now in Digital Journalism!
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

This article traces how the news industry, influencer and fan cultures, and the platformatised creator economy are intersecting with and transforming each other.