Read Them Sideways

In this episode, your host Sebastian Svegaard speaks with PhD candidate Jasper Vermeulen. Jasper's work looks at human and robot interaction, and how both can collaborate. Jasper focuses specifically on human-robot collaboration in surgery, and how robots can augment human skillsets.

Read Them Sideways is a podcast series from the Digital Media Research Centre, bringing our researchers and collaborators to the spotlight to discuss issues that relate to communications, digital media, internet studies, and much more.

In this episode, your host Kate FitzGerald speaks with DMRC Post Doctoral Research Fellow, Dr Ashwin Nagappa about his new project related to the Fediverse and alternative social media platforms. Ashwin takes us through what the Fediverse is, the history of alternative social media platforms, and what might be appealing about these spaces for users.

On 16th June, 2015, Donald Trump announced that he was running to be the Republican Party's nominee for President of the United States. Ten years on, your host Sebastian Svegaard sits down with guests Stephen Harrington, Timothy Graham, Kateryna Kasianenko, and Kate FitzGerald to talk about the impact Trump has had on politics, both in the US, and around the globe.

In this episode, your host Kate FitzGerald chats with Ned Watt about his new paper, The Art of the (Platform) Deal. In January 2025, the platform company Meta abruptly announced that it would be ending its industry-leading third-party fact-checking program starting with fact checkers in the United States. Ned and Kate chat about how this relates to his new paper and what the future of fact checking looks like under these new policy changes.

In this episode, your host Sebastian Svegaard chats with PhD candidate Vish Padinjaredath Suresh about Netflix's recent hit miniseries, Adolescence. Vish's research looks at radicalisation and the manosphere, specifically on Reddit and they share their expertise and perspective on the television show in today's episode.

A content warning for discussions of acts of gender-based violence that occur in the show. Also, of course, a spoiler warning for Netflix's Adolescence as all episodes are discussed.

In this episode, your host Kate FitzGerald chats with co-host turned guest Sam Vilkins about our analysis of Facebook and Instagram in the lead up to the Australian 2025 Federal Election. We talk about trends amongst parties and individuals, and the key themes of the election that are emerging in our data.

You can read our blog covering the campaign so far here.

You can also sign up as a 'citizen scientist' for the DMRC's TikTok data donation project at the website here.

In this episode of Read Them Sideways, your host Stephen Harrington chats with PhD researcher Carly Lubicz-Zaorski in the lead up to the 2025 Australian Federal election. They discuss the shifting discourses about climate and energy in the context of the federal election campaign, the nuclear power debate, and the strategies of delay and denial by fossil fuel lobby groups.

Show notes and further reading:

• ANU Annual Climate Update: https://iceds.anu.edu.au/news-events/events/anu-climate-update-2025-if-not-now-when
• The Carbon Club: https://www.uts.edu.au/about/uts-vision/initiatives/uts4climate/events/conversation-carbon-club-marian-wilkinson
• InfluenceMap narrative playbook: https://influencemap.org/briefing/Undermining-Progress-Investigating-the-Fossil-Fuel-Sector-s-Continual-Dominance-26562
• Discourses of Climate Delay (Lamb et al., 2020): https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/global-sustainability/article/discourses-of-climate-delay/7B11B722E3E3454BB6212378E32985A7

Content warning: Discussions and examples of hate speech drawn from Meta's policies.

In this episode of Read Them Sideways, your host Kate FitzGerald speaks with Lucinda Nelson, a PhD student in the Digital Media Research Centre, researching online misogyny. We discuss Meta's recent changes in their hate speech moderation, particularly as they relate to transgender people and other minority groups.

Read Them Sideways is a podcast series from the Digital Media Research Centre, bringing our researchers to the spotlight to discuss issues that relate to communications, digital media, internet studies, and much more.

In this episode of Read Them Sideways, your host Sebastian Svegaard speaks with Dr Catherine Knight Steele. Catherine is an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Maryland - College Park. Her research focuses on race, gender, and media, with a specific emphasis on Black culture and discourse. She examines representations of marginalized communities in the media and how groups resist oppression and practice joy using online technology to create spaces of community. 

Sebastian chats with Catherine about the utility of "joy", and its relation with automation, technology, and digital feminism.

Catherine's most recent book, Digital Black Feminism, can be found at this link.

In this important episode of Read Them Sideways dedicated to the third anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, your host Sebastian Svegaard speaks with Kateryna Kasianenko and Olga Boichak.

Kateryna is a PhD student at the Digital Media Research Centre where she researches the practices of online engagement with Russia’s war on Ukraine in Japan and globally. Olga is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney researching the role of information and communication technologies in shaping public perception and outcomes of wars.

You can read more about the North Atlantic Fella Organisation here. Kateryna and Olga recently published aresearch article about the North Atlantic Fella Organisation available here. Olga and her co-author Vadym Miskyi recently contributed a chapter on a resilient Ukrainian media ecosystem during wartime.