Faculty/School

Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice

Topic status

We're looking for students to study this topic.

Research centre

Digital Media Research Centre

Supervisors

Associate Professor Timothy Graham
Position
Associate Professor
Division / Faculty
Faculty of CI, Education & Social Justice
Associate Professor Stephen Harrington
Position
Associate Professor
Division / Faculty
Faculty of CI, Education & Social Justice

Overview

Students will be directly affiliated with the Australian Research Council Discovery Project “Understanding and Combatting ‘Dark Political Communication’” (DP240103362). The project, led by QUT researchers, and including a team based at Deakin University in Melbourne, aims to better understand the rapidly-evolving, and increasingly sophisticated, tactics deployed by political actors to manipulate public attention and opinion.

For this project, students will focus on coding and analysing data from a series of sources, including interviews, mainstream newspapers, YouTube, TikTok and Twitter/X. This work will assist the research team in understanding specific strategies employed by political actors, which will feed into case studies emerging from the project. Students will be named authors on any publications arising from this work.

Research engagement

Data analysis

Research activities

Coding interview data (using tools such as NVivo), undertaking computationally-assisted analysis on social media data, traditional media content analysis (of TV shows, Newspapers, etc.)

Outcomes

Publications and other research outputs from the project, including media industry reports.

Skills and experience

Students will ideally have undergraduate experience in a cognate field (communication, or similar), but smart, hard-working students from a range of backgrounds will also be considered.

Start date

25 November, 2024

End date

1 February, 2025

Location

QUT Kelvin Grove; some work can also be undertaken from home

Additional information

Students will get to work closely with the research team to develop their research skills, and will work collaboratively on interpreting the findings. Students will be  able to enhance their own understanding of cutting-edge research methods, and how these can be applied in a range of contexts.

Keywords

Contact

Associate Professor Stephen Harrington

s.harrington@qut.edu.au