Time for Trust: Can we trust Hollywood?
In this episode, Associate Professor Bruce Isaacs dives into the crisis of trust in images – from Hollywood to Instagram – and explains why we may no longer know what’s real. It’s a timely, provocative discussion about how cinema, digital media and AI are reshaping our relationship to truth itself.
Summer Reflections on Australia’s Social Media Minimum Age Laws
It is unusual to find yourself as a digital media researcher in Australia being at the forefront of global policy debates. Given the talk about the three great Digital Empires – the US, EU and China – who set the global agenda, the place for middle-sized powers to be taking a policy lead around digital tech would seem to be limited.
How do Platforms Matter?
The paper ‘How do platforms matter? Media power, platform power and the digital domination of Australian media’, co-authored by Terry Flew (University of Sydney) and Cameron McTernan (Adelaide University) has now been published by International Communications Gazette. The paper is part of a special issue ‘Networks of Power: Media and Internet Concentration, Platform Capitalism, and the Future of Democracy’, edited by Dwayne Winseck (Carleton University). The special issue is part of the Global Media and Internet Concentration Project (GMICP), funded through the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
Digital policy as problem space: Australia’s social media age restrictions for under-16s
On December 10, 2025, the Online Safety Act (Social Media Minimum Age) Amendment, which was passed by both Australian Federal Houses of Parliament 12 months earlier, was implemented. This marked the onset of what is known globally as Australia’s social media ban for under-16s. In practice it involves those under 16 being restricted from holding accounts on ten platforms designated by the Office of the eSafety Commissioner, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, Reddit and Snapchat.
Believing What You See: Trust and Vision from the French Revolution to Generative AI
The seminar brought together a cross disciplinary cohort of scholars to present papers on the veracity of the image and information in public life, and the relationship between visual understanding and societal trust.
Vertical Short Drama: The next screen addiction? Insights from Dr Wenjia Tang
Dr Wenjia Tang, post-doctoral researcher with the Mediated Trust ARC Laureate team, explores the rise of vertical short drama — a fast-growing format reshaping screen culture. In this talk, Dr Tang examines how mobile-first storytelling platforms are transforming audience habits, merging social media aesthetics with narrative content, and raising new questions about attention, monetisation, and media addiction in the digital age.
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.
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.
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.
New opportunities – Mediated Trust PhD scholarships
Are you passionate about understanding the intersection of trust, news media, digital platforms, public institutions, and AI, and contributing to current debates on these issues? The University of Sydney is offering Mediated Trust ARC Laureate PhD Scholarships.
What are people actually doing with AI? A better way to measure performance
If you’ve ever asked ChatGPT to rewrite an email, check your grammar, or summarise an article, you’re not alone. Yet surprisingly, most AI benchmarks rarely test these everyday tasks.
Meet Louisa Shen, new Mediated Trust Post-Doctoral Associate
Louisa Shen recently joined the Mediated Trust team as a Post-Doctoral Associate for Trust and AI. She originally trained in literature and history in Auckland, NZ, before working as a technical communicator in the software sector. Her doctoral research undertaken in Cambridge, UK developed an extended history of electronic display technology from the 19th century to the present.