QUT Digital Media Research Centre

Incredible work and congratulations to all DMRC researchers who were awarded an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award! 🎉

This award was a result of Carly, Caroline and Michelle's contribution to the Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy. Congratulations to everyone involved!

This award acknowledges initiatives that support QUT's commitment to sustainability goals, while enhancing research related to and extending public understanding of sustainability challenges.

Congratulations to PhD candidates Carly Lubicz and Caroline Gardam, along with Associate Professor Michelle Riedlinger for their recent QUT Faculty award in the "Sustainability" category!

Australia's social media ban for children under 16 begins today.

Our explainer paper provides an overview of the complex issue of social media bans for young teens, explaining the technical challenges, potential risks, and specific concerns voiced by parents and carers.

Read it here: qut.to/1ww5%

The social media ban: how we got here and what to expect (#37)

We have your morning commute listening for Wednesday lined up... 👂🔊

DMRC Director Daniel Angus (@antmandan.bsky.social) spoke with the Read Them Sideways podcast team about the social media ban, the implications, and what to expect in the future.

open.spotify.com/episode/6IES...

This presentation will be of interest to all researchers who are utilising LLMs in their research, particularly in the field of news media.

Treating the LLM as a reflective partner rather than a replacement for human expertise allows them to consider bias and the reasons for disagreement, improving agreement overall while recognising that perfect agreement is neither possible nor the primary goal given the complexity of the task.

By examining where and why the LLM and human coders disagree on article relevance, they iteratively refine both prompts and manual coding.

Laura and her co-authors used GPT-4o to analyse the topical focus of news articles, a task that forms a crucial first step in a large-scale study of Australian media coverage on climate change.

Vodden_Esau_Riedlinger_Choucair_AANZCA_2025_The_Value_of_Disagreement.pptx Reflections on the value of disagreement in human-LLM collaboration - Download as a PPTX, PDF or view online for free

Next in our round-up of #AANZCA2025 conference slides, we have Laura Vodden's presentation on "Reflections on the value of disagreement in human-LLM collaboration".

www.slideshare.net/s...

Laura's co-authors were @kathaesa.bsky.social, @tariqchoucair.bsky.social, and @riedlinm.bsky.social

Facing a ban, teens are sick of adults ignoring what they think about social media 'Banning it fully just straight up makes it a lot harder than finding a solution to the problem … it’s like taking the easy solution.'

A new report led by Michael Dezuanni, Kim Osman and Lynrose Jane Genon has been released today on "Young Australians' perspectives on the social media minimum age legislation".

www.crikey.com.au/20...

Cam Wilson at Crikey has covered the report and its findings.

@svegaard.bsky.social spoke about the history of propaganda studies and agit-prop - a portmanteau of "agitation" and "propaganda". In the 2020s, agit-prop uses digital affordances to scale up the creation and spread of content and has a highly participatory nature.

Agit-prop in the 20s: reconceptualising propaganda for a networked age Presented at AANZCA 2025 at University of the Sunshine Coast - Download as a PPTX, PDF or view online for free

We had a large DMRC contingent at the #AANZCA2025 conference last week and we will be sharing conference slides for those who were not able to attend.

First up is Sebastian Svegaard's presentation on "Agit-prop in the 20s: reconceptualising propaganda for a networked age".

Kate writes about the results of forthcoming research with DMRC colleagues investigating how chatbot systems respond to conspiratorial questions and prompts and what safety guardrails - if any - are in place to keep users safe.

AI chatbots are encouraging conspiracy theories – new research If you interact with chatbots about conspiracy theories, research shows you can can easily fall down the rabbit hole.

PhD researcher Kate FitzGerald has a new article out in The Conversation today looking at generative AI chatbots and conspiracy theories.

Thank you to @snurb.info, @dezuanni.bsky.social, @pwik.bsky.social, @jeanburgess.bsky.social and Distinguished Emeritus Professor Stuart Cunningham for their time and insights.

The DMRC, 10 Years On (Or: How to Build a Research Centre) Read Them Sideways · Episode

We are very proud of the incredible people and culture that we have at the Digital Media Research Centre. We are celebrating our 10 year anniversary this year, including a podcast episode from some of the people that made it happen.

open.spotify.com/epi...

We hope you enjoy listening!

Expected outcomes include the refinement of deliberative thinking and practices to strengthen democratic resilience in Australia. We look forward to seeing the results from Professor Selen Ercan, Professor John Dryzek, Dr Jordan McSwiney, Dr Ehsan Dehghan, Dr Sofya Glazunova and Dr Kurt Sengul!

Adapting a mixed-method strategy, the project will analyse communications on foreign conflicts across multiple sites, including digital platforms, and explore the roles of actors from political leaders and journalists to everyday citizens in fostering or hindering deliberation across difference.

It will extend the application of deliberative democracy to address de-territorialized conflicts in multicultural societies. It will examine public sphere responses in Australia to two major conflicts—the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars—aiming to test and enhance the deliberative approach.

Congratulations to DMRC investigator Ehsan Dehghan (@essideh.com) and colleagues across Australia for their 2026 Discovery Project! This project examines the public sphere responses and domestic divides caused by foreign conflicts, to find what fosters or hinders deliberation across difference.

The full Summer School programme is ready to go! Please register before the 19th of December to join us for a packed week of learning and collaboration. ☀️📚 #dmrcss26

A recent publication from our DMRC researchers @kkasianenko.bsky.social and @guangnanrio.bsky.social! This interdisciplinary study uses conspiracies about global philanthropy as an example of "floating signifiers".

Check out the thread below for an explainer from Kateryna and follow the 🔗 to read!

Well done to @carlylubicz.bsky.social, @atavist13.bsky.social, @snurb.info, @phzerosounds.bsky.social and @riedlinm.bsky.social for putting this Explainer together!

📚 This explainer is the latest resource in our Digital Media Demystified series, where researchers at QUT’s Digital Media Research Centre tackle specific questions, ideas, issues, and technologies related to digital media with the aim to inform and empower users of contemporary online environments.

What harm can problematic info cause? And how can you equip yourself and others to evaluate content and claims before you share them? ➡️ We also discuss what governments, platforms, civil society, educators, and communities can do to strengthen our information environment.

The terms ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ have become household names. But what’s the difference? What are other types of problematic information? Why and how does it spread?

A new edition of Digital Media Demystified by the DMRC is out! 🔗 Find our Explainers and associated resources in our dedicated Knowledge Hub: research.qut.edu.au/dmrc/digital...

This study considers how Travis Kelce serves as just one of many flashpoints in the Taylor Swift fandom, and includes an analysis of user practices across 8 Taylor Swift and 3 pop culture subreddits. Check out the presentation if you have an interest in fan or anti-fan studies!