A reminder that Dr Ashwin Nagappa is seeking participants for this interesting study. If you're reading this, you're eligible to participate! Check out the flyer below for more information. 👀

Congratulations to PhD candidate Dan Whelan-Shamy on his article in AI & Society! This great read is available open access now. 📖 🎉

Your brain explained: Why it's getting harder to pay attention If it feels harder to concentrate than it used to, it's not just you. Scientists say your brain is reacting exactly as it was designed to — but in a very different world.

Great to see DMRC Director, Daniel Angus, quoted in this interesting and interactive explainer from the ABC today!

Arrest of national war hero Ben Roberts-Smith cuts deeply to core of Australian psyche Criminal charges against the Victoria Cross recipient now on remand has deeply divided a nation whose identity is often entwined with the exploits of young men on foreign fields

This week, Dr Sebastian Svegaard (@svegaard.bsky.social) from the DMRC was quoted in an article from The Guardian, reflecting on the arrest of Ben Roberts-Smith and its potential to heighten cultural divisions.

A QUT Digital Media Research Centre study led by Professor Amanda Lotz has found Australians’ social media use is far more private, varied, and personalised than thought, and that YouTube now functions less like social media and more like a vast “video encyclopedia”.

www.qut.edu.au/news?id=203994

Hosted by the QUT Digital Media Research Centre and moderated by ABC reporter Tegan Taylor, join leading QUT digital media experts and ABC Commissioning Editor Julie Hanna to discuss the many challenges posed by a post-truth digital world.

Register here: www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-matter...

Scholarship now open for MPhil project to investigate the challenge of pluralistic AI alignment – the socio-technical problem of aligning LLM behaviour with multiple, potentially conflicting sets of values.

Closes 3 May 2026

lnkd.in/gcNVSn-8

Image: Jamillah Knowles & Digit / betterimagesofai.org

TikTok recommender systems and the 'For You' project w/ Patrik Wikstrom (#43) Read Them Sideways · Episode

This week's episode of Read Them Sideways podcast is another Summer School discussion, this time from Prof Patrik Wikstrom, discussing the 'For You' project on TikTok. Patrik Wikstrom discusses user experiences on TikTok and our highly individualised media systems.

Rethinking contemporary public communication spaces w/ Axel Bruns (#42) Read Them Sideways · Episode

This week's episode of Read Them Sideways is the recording of a panel discussion from this year's Summer School from Prof Axel Bruns, which invites us to rethink our our everyday experience of public communication.

Link below or listen wherever you get your podcasts!

QUT Data Scientist | Expressions of Interest

Seeking expressions of interest for a casual Data Scientist to support DECRA project Democratic Resilience Online: Strengthening Public Opinion Formation Amid Digital Threats.

EOIs close 24 April. See details below:

research.qut.edu.au/dmrc/wp-cont...

Associate Professor Tim Graham has provided commentary to the ABC regarding war propaganda and media manipulation.

Each member of our roundtable provides their own unique expertise and perspective on the platform formerly known as Twitter - whether that be as a place for networking, breaking news, or activism.

On the 21st of March, 2006, Jack Dorsey sent the first tweet: "just setting up my twttr". This was the start of a significant social network, both for researchers and the general public.

20 Years of Twitter Roundtable (#41) Read Them Sideways · Episode

This week's episode of the Read Them Sideways podcast is a roundtable discussing the 20 year anniversary of Twitter with Jean Burgess, Axel Bruns, Kateryna Kasianenko, and Luke Pearson

Investigating media diets in the 21st century w/ Amanda Lotz & Gabriela Lunardi (#40) Read Them Sideways · Episode

For our 40th episode of the Read Them Sideways podcast, we have a recording of a panel from our recent Summer School, looking at Australian media diets and attitudes in the 21st century. Tune in to hear more about this ongoing project!

This study raises important questions about AI regulation and the potential harms involved in the use of chatbots. Contact Kate FitzGerald, Michelle Riedlinger, Axel Bruns, Stephen Harrington, Timothy Graham or Daniel Angus if you want to know more!

DMRC researchers prompted seven chatbots with questions related to nine conspiracy theories to test the efficacy of safety guardrails against conspiratorial ideation. The results were mixed, with different conspiracy theories and different chatbots varying widely in performance.

“Just Asking Questions”: Doing Our Own Research on Conspiratorial Ideation by Generative AI Chatbots | Article | Media and Communication Katherine M. FitzGerald, Michelle Riedlinger, Axel Bruns, Stephen Harrington, Timothy Graham, Daniel Angus

New article alert!

“Just Asking Questions”: Doing Our Own Research on Conspiratorial Ideation by Generative AI Chatbots is now available to read open access! This study examined how a selection of popular chatbots responded to conspiratorial prompts.

The DMRC hosted visitors Lisa, Ahrabhi, and Helena as part of our UA-DAAD program, which involves exchanges between Australian and German universities. This collaboration is working on mapping destructive polarisation across news media. We look forward to seeing our colleagues in Germany soon!

A few weeks of X’s algorithm can make you more right-wing – and it doesn’t wear off quickly Elon Musk’s social media platform is boosting conservative content – and it’s having long-lasting effects on how users see the world.

Well done to Tim Graham for his new piece in The Conversation! Tim discusses recent studies that investigate the X (formerly Twitter) algorithm, its ability to push far-right content onto users, and the implications. Read at the link below!

A team from the DMRC, led by Caroline and Carly, responded with a submission and were then invited to speak in Canberra to the Senate. This episode discusses misinformation about climate change in the Australian context, and the Senate Inquiry itself, which continues this week.

In 2025, the Australian Government appointed a committee to investigate the prevalence and impacts of misinformation and disinformation which relates to climate change and energy.

Misinformation on Climate Change and Energy w/ Caroline Gardam & Carly Lubicz-Zaorski Read Them Sideways · Episode

New podcast episode available!

Your host Klaus Groebner chatted with Caroline Gardam and Carly Lubicz-Zaorski about misinformation on Climate Change and Energy.

And that's a wrap on the 2026 Summer School.

Workshops galore on the final day and we ended formal proceedings with a Bake Your Thesis - Cake Decorating, and social activities with a movie night.

Thank you to delegates and presenters for your attendance and contributions. See you again next year!

Aljosha, along with Vasco Avides Moreira and Jonathan Hendrickx, argue that this finding also has significant implications for legacy media, which will need to continue to adapt to keep up with young people’s ever-changing media and news consumption habits and preferences.

They prefer those who talk to them “as a friend”, emphasizing authenticity, emotional proximity, and conversational clarity over traditional, formal modes of reporting.

“Talk to Me as a Friend!”: How Teenagers Prefer Their Newsfluencers on Social Media This study investigates how Portuguese teenagers (aged 13–18) perceive and prefer the communication characteristics of so-called “newsfluencers” on social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Through 20 semi-structured interviews, the research explores how verbal and non-verbal traits shape adolescents’ engagement with news in a media ecosystem increasingly dominated by digital intermediaries. Drawing on literature on brand journalism, the study categorizes preferences into four key elements: character, tone, language, and purpose. The findings reveal that teenagers favor newsfluencers who are inspiring and friendly (character), are honest and direct (tone), use simple and fun speech (language), and aim to educate and inform (purpose). Participants express a desire for journalists who “talk to me as a friend”, emphasizing authenticity, emotional proximity, and conversational clarity over traditional, formal modes of reporting. These insights suggest that effective youth-oriented journalism on social media must balance factual accuracy and emotional engagement, blending education with entertainment. The research contributes to emerging scholarship on social media journalism and youth news consumption by highlighting how relational and affective communication strategies can enhance young audiences’ trust, understanding, and participation in news.

NEW PUBLICATION!

In a new article in Journalism and Media, the DMRC's Aljosha Karim Schapals and colleagues consider communicative traits young people prefer in a "newsfluencer".

Available to read in open access here:

On day 2 of DMRC Summer School, delegates joined workshops on data donation, online safety, socio-technical grounded theory, and intersectional approaches to digital media research.

A highlight was the research translation panel discussion.

Tonight, delegates are enjoying the annual quiz night.

QUT - Strengthening Public Opinion Formation Amid Digital Threats (PhD scholarship)

PhD scholarship applications are open for a project investigating how public opinion is formed in online spaces, with a focus on the deliberative quality of discussions, social influence dynamics, and platform affordances and governance across major digital platforms.

www.qut.edu.au/study/fees-a...

Online topical communities actively exploit Instagram’s affordances to amplify conspiratorial and political worldviews, making fully automated detection of problematic climate change content unworkable without human-in-the-loop interpretation.