Mediated Trust

Contact

Exploring new perspectives through sabbatical

We were delighted to host Professor Jörg Matthes from the University of Vienna during his recent sabbatical with the Mediated Trust team in Sydney.

As Professor Matthes shared, the benefits of a sabbatical are both professional and personal. Stepping back from routine offers a rare chance to gain distance, reflect deeply, and see both life and research with renewed clarity. It’s in these moments of pause that new ideas emerge and long-held assumptions are re-examined.

“The benefits of taking a sabbatical are always twofold—professional and, of course, personal. Sometimes, as in life, when you gain a certain distance from yourself, you begin to see things more clearly. The same applies to research. A sabbatical gives you a different perspective: more time to think, more time to reflect, and more space to make informed decisions about the direction of your work.

Interestingly, when I started as a master’s student in psychology, my thesis focused on trust in news media. So when I saw the focus on trust here at the university, I was immediately intrigued.

Although I’ve only been here a short time, we’ve already launched a special issue for the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media on the topic of trust in generative AI. I also recorded an episode for the podcast series Time for Trust, which I really enjoyed—it was thought-provoking and insightful.

This time has also allowed me to reflect on the broader discourse, and to learn more about how the conversation around trust is unfolding in Australia compared to Europe. Overall, it’s been a deeply enriching experience.”

Share this article

Related Articles

Building Trust in Data Science: Interdisciplinary Insights from Rohan Alexander

In this engaging talk, Rohan shares his interdisciplinary journey, collaborative research efforts, and the challenges of building trustworthy, reproducible workflows. From sparse matrices to the evolving role of large language models, he reflects on how AI is reshaping coding practices and the broader implications for society.

AI and Communication: Trust, Ethics, Justice and Policy

Professor Terry Flew was honoured to be an invited keynote speaker for Charles Sturt University’s 50 Years and Beyond: School of Information and Communication Studies “Thoughts on the Beyond” Public Lecture Series. In his address, Professor Flew explored the evolving frontiers of media, communication, and digital society, reflecting on how the past five decades of scholarship can inform the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

Dr Agata Stepnik discusses digital ethnography

In this video interview, Post-doctoral research fellow Dr. Agata Stepnik talks about the importance of digital ethnography as a research method and the need for situated and observational methods in understanding digital cultures.

Trust, Institutions and Governance

These are a series of seminars for post-doctoral fellows, PhD students and the Mediated Trust research team on the theme of “Trust, Institutions and Governance”. The aims of the seminars are: To ground the concept of trust in institutions and organisations, as an intermediate (meso) point between interpersonal and societal trust. To consider leading theories of trust, truth and communication, and consensus, critical and conflict models of social order, and how they shape understandings of trust.  To discuss institutionalism as a set of theories and methods that can inform the study of trust by grounding it in the historical development of social institutions.  To consider the concept of governance as a way of understanding contemporary forms of politics, power and regulation.