Brady Robards
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Content Moderation and Community Standards: The Disconnect Between Policy and User Experiences Reporting Harmful and Offensive Content on Social Media Open
Moderating harmful and offensive content on social media is challenging for digital platforms that seek to balance regulation and censorship across a diverse user group. It is further complicated by discrepancies between platform policies,…
Public service sentiment in Australian digital communities on Reddit and Whirlpool during the COVID-19 pandemic Open
This paper explores the role of digitally networked local communities on the platforms Reddit and Whirlpool in helping citizens navigate and understand Australian public services during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study inc…
“TO BE QUEER, TO BE IN DATING APPS, TO BE QUEER IN DATING APPS”: THE ON-LIFE INDUSTRIOUSNESS OF CREATING STRATEGIES BEHIND STIGMAS AND FEARS OF ONLINE DATING OF ITALIAN AND AUSTRALIAN QUEER YOUNG ADULTS Open
The multifaced nature of online dating practices and experiences highlights both its empowering potential and the challenges it poses, including stigma and violence, particularly within the contexts of queer and LGBT+ communities and the s…
View article: SCREENSHOT METHODOLOGIES TO COLLECT AND ANALYSE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM ADVERTISING
SCREENSHOT METHODOLOGIES TO COLLECT AND ANALYSE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM ADVERTISING Open
This paper presents three projects where we have developed participatory digital research methods designed to extend observability of digital advertising on social media platforms and engage with users’ individual experiences with digital …
View article: ALGORITHMIC GOSSIP IN YOUNG PEOPLE’S ACCOUNTS OF ‘UNHEALTHY’ ADVERTISING ON SOCIAL MEDIA
ALGORITHMIC GOSSIP IN YOUNG PEOPLE’S ACCOUNTS OF ‘UNHEALTHY’ ADVERTISING ON SOCIAL MEDIA Open
The algorithmic and individualised nature of advertising on social media - and the intentionally opaque and unobservable design of advertising algorithms - makes them difficult to study. We turn to participatory methods, working with 204 y…
‘You can’t trust the mainstream media’: exploring shifts in racist, homophobic, transphobic, sexist, antisemitic and Islamophobic sentiment within Australian far-right alternative news media Open
Alternative news media, which opposes mainstream news media, has been utilised by the far right to proliferate their ideology. This study explores how the scale of discussion, and negative framing, of different groups that are commonly tar…
View article: Observing “tuned” advertising on digital platforms
Observing “tuned” advertising on digital platforms Open
The hyper-targeted advertising that emerged on digital platforms over the past two decades is now more productively understood as tuned advertising, a dynamic and unfolding process where ads are continuously algorithmically "optimised" to …
View article: Drinking as affective labour: A discussion of Australian men working in hospitality and corporate workplaces
Drinking as affective labour: A discussion of Australian men working in hospitality and corporate workplaces Open
In the public imaginary, drinking is often thought of as a behaviour separate from individuals’ formal labour practices, but studies increasingly highlight the complex ways alcohol is entwined with work. Building on recent conceptual devel…
White Warriors and Weak Women: Identifying Central Discourses of Masculinity in Neo-Nazi Telegram Channels Open
Building on calls for more analyses of constructions of gender within extremist groups, this study examines Australian neo-Nazis' construction of hegemonic masculinity on the digital media platform, Telegram. Undertaking a keyword co-occur…
View article: No Targets, Just Vibes: Tuned Advertising and the Algorithmic Flow of Social Media
No Targets, Just Vibes: Tuned Advertising and the Algorithmic Flow of Social Media Open
Digital advertising’s cultural surround is algorithmically tuned. The popular narrative about digital advertising is that it is hyper-targeted and customized. In this article, we argue that digital platforms’ targeted advertising is more p…
View article: What matters in the queer archive? Technologies of memory and <i>Queering the Map</i>
What matters in the queer archive? Technologies of memory and <i>Queering the Map</i> Open
Queering the Map ( queeringthemap.com ) is a novel digital platform: a storymap, an anonymous collaborative record, an archive of queer experiences. To contribute to the platform, visitors make their own mark by clicking on an empty space …
View article: THE ALGORITHMIC FLOW OF HARMFUL INDUSTRIES ADVERTISING ON SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS
THE ALGORITHMIC FLOW OF HARMFUL INDUSTRIES ADVERTISING ON SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS Open
Advertising shapes our larger public culture but the typical experience of advertising is now confined to our private and algorithmically-customised social media feeds. In this project, with our partner VicHealth, we used a participatory d…
View article: Young Australians Navigating the ‘Careers Information Ecology’
Young Australians Navigating the ‘Careers Information Ecology’ Open
The policy orientations of advanced neoliberal democracies situate young people as rational actors who are responsible for their own career outcomes. While career scholars have been critical of how this routinely ignores the unequal effect…
View article: Social media use among bisexuals and pansexuals: connection, harassment and mental health
Social media use among bisexuals and pansexuals: connection, harassment and mental health Open
Analysing survey data from 1,304 LGBTQ + young people in Australia collected in 2016, this paper considers key distinctions between the experiences of bisexual and pansexual participants, and lesbian and gay participants in relation to soc…
View article: Understanding autonomy and relationality in men's lives
Understanding autonomy and relationality in men's lives Open
Masculinities scholarship tends toward describing autonomy as bound up with hegemonic masculine ideals such as independence, atomization, and self‐sufficiency, without fully delving into the concept of autonomy. This article offers a more …
“How a Facebook Update Can Cost You Your Job”: News Coverage of Employment Terminations Following Social Media Disclosures, From Racist Cops to Queer Teachers Open
Social media posts and profiles have become a key part of hiring and firing processes, producing a “hidden curriculum of surveillance.” When hiring, employers routinely engage in “cybervetting” job candidates, making judgments based on the…
View article: “Looking After Yourself Is Self-Respect”: The Limits and Possibilities of Men’s Care on a Night Out
“Looking After Yourself Is Self-Respect”: The Limits and Possibilities of Men’s Care on a Night Out Open
Notions of masculinity have played a central role in social and cultural research on men’s drinking events. Within this context, masculinity is regularly called on to explain the problematic disparities that mark men’s alcohol consumption,…
Presentation: Life, Disrupted: Young people, education and employment before and after COVID-19 Open
Presentation slides from launch of discussion paper 'Life, Disrupted: Young people, education and employment before and after COVID-19'
View article: QUEERING THE MAP: PHYSICAL TRACES AND DIGITAL PLACES OF QUEERLIVES
QUEERING THE MAP: PHYSICAL TRACES AND DIGITAL PLACES OF QUEERLIVES Open
QueeringTheMap.com, launched in late 2017 by designer Lucas LaRochelle, is a ‘community-generated mapping project that geo-locates queer moments, memories and histories in relation to physical space’. In a Google Maps-style interface, user…
Researching Connected African Youth in Australia through Social Media Ethnography and Scroll-Back Interviews Open
This article is a reflexive analysis of two overlapping research methods, social media ethnography and “scroll-back interviews”, that were employed to study how young first- and second-generation African migrants in Australia use social me…
Nomophobia: Is the Fear of Being without a Smartphone Associated with Problematic Use? Open
Mobile phones are changing behaviour, relationships, communication and the dynamics of physical environments. As such, reliance on the device for everyday activities has increased. Consequently, “nomophobia”, defined as the fear of being w…
Tumblr as a space of learning, connecting, and identity formation for LGBTIQ+ young people Open
This book takes an extensive look at the many different types of users and cultures that comprise the popular social media platform Tumblr. Though it does not receive nearly as much attention as other social media such as Twitter or Facebo…
DATA SELVES: TRUST, CONTROL AND SELF-REPRESENTATION IN DIGITAL SOCIETY Open
A considerable amount of personal data is now collected on and by individuals: footsteps on Fitbits, screen time in Apple’s iOS, conversations on dating apps, sleeping patterns in baby tracker apps, and viewing habits on Netflix and YouTub…
GENERATIONAL DIFFERENCES IN SOCIAL MEDIA USE, GENDER IDENTITY, AND SEXUALITY AMONG YOUNG LGBTIQ+ PEOPLE IN AUSTRALIA Open
For LGBTIQ+ people, the internet and social media are key channels for communicating and connecting with queer peers, and learning about queer life and queer experiences. While digital social spaces have evolved over the past 20 to 30 year…
Walking Through, Going Along and Scrolling Back: Ephemeral mobilities in digital ethnography Open
Spatial metaphors have long been part of the way we make sense of media. From early conceptualizations of the internet, we have come to understand digital media as spaces that support, deny or are subject to different mobilities. With the …
"Hey, i'm having these experiences": Tumblr use and young people's queer (dis)connections Open
© 2019 Paul Byron, Brady Robards, Benjamin Hanckel, Son Vivienne, and Brendan Churchill. This article explores LGBTIQ+ young people's use of Tumblr-a social media platform often associated with queer youth cultures. Drawing on data from su…
Exploring men's risky drinking cultures Open
Research by Monash University for the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth)
Internet research and digital media methods Open
The most dominant form of digital social media, Facebook, has more than two billion monthly users (Facebook.com 2018). At the time of writing, Facebook is consumed by several scandals that have their roots in the themes and issues covered …