My research focuses on media audiences, media users, the politics of popular culture and mediatization. It is informed by British and American Cultural Studies and the North American Mass Communication tradition. Methodologically, I use ethnography, cultivation analysis, quantitative survey research, content analysis and online thematic discourse analysis, guided by grounded theory. Many recent projects focus on social media. I welcome postgraduate inquiries in all of these areas. If you would like to know more about my writing and other research activities, please click the hyperlinks below, indicated in blue.
I am author of the books Youth and Media, Investigating Audiences and Understanding Audiences, all with Sage Publications. I am currently working on a fourth title, Exploring Media Research, also with Sage.
Other studies of media audiences, youth, mass communication theory, research methods, social media, reality television, violence, school shootings, celebrity, alcohol, politics, sport fans, pornography, media education and the politics of comedy have been published in several anthologies and scholarly journals. I’m best known for my work on Cultivation Analysis.
I regularly write analysis and opinion pieces for The Conversation, Australia’s largest independent news website. I have also written for the Sydney Morning Herald and On Line Opinion: Australia’s e-journal of social and political debate, and provided commentary for television, radio and press outlets including: ABC News 24, ABC News Radio, ABC Drive Time, ABC Radio National’s “The List”, BBC Radio 4, the Australian Associated Press, the Herald Sun, Metro, SBS Radio and Triple J.
As well as lecturing in Communications and Media Studies, I am the Coordinator of the Film, Media and Communications Postgraduate Program. Former Vice Chair of the International Communication Association’s Popular Communication Division, I serve on the editorial boards of Communication Theory, Sociology Compass, Particip@tions and the Journal of Public Affairs, and have reviewed papers for numerous international journals including Communication, Culture & Critique, Continuum, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Media International Australia and Sociology.
