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Will the Australian Social Media Ban for Under-16s work?

The Australian Federal Parliament passed the world’s first ban on social media for individuals under 16 in November 2024. The ban, set to take effect at the end of 2025, will restrict access for young people to designated social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, X, Snapchat, and TikTok. However, YouTube is exempt due to its educational use and dedicated kids’ channel.

Time for Trust podcast – Professor James Arvanitakis, Director of the Forrest Research Foundation

This conversation revolves around issues of political polarization, trust, and social cohesion, featuring James Arvanitakis, Professor and Director of the Forrest Research Foundation.

My Summer reading – Simon Schama, Citizens

My summer reading for 2025 was Simon Schama’s very influential 1989 book Citizens, a Chronicle of the French Revolution. Not surprisingly, I was led to this book by listening to The Rest is History podcast, which brings out the full array of colourful characters associated with this eventful period of history.

New opportunities – Mediated Trust PhD scholarships

Up to four PhD scholarships are available for research into the relationship of trust to news media, digital platforms, public institutions, and artificial intelligence.

AANZCA Presentations 2024

I recently delivered two presentations at the AANZCA 2024 Conference in Melbourne, showcasing emerging research into digital media platforms, global streaming strategies, and local content production.

New Scholarship Opportunity with the Vietnam Media Innovation Hub

Come research the booming Vietnamese digital media industries on this fully funded research scholarship at the University of Sydney!

Internship with the IDPO

Hi I’m Chris Zhao, an intern in IDPO team. I’m currently studying Master of Digital Communication and Culture. It’s my last semester here. Looking back, my courses seem to connect through a common thread: the intersection of emerging technologies, communication, and society. Emerging technologies have revolutionised how we interact with the world—making communication more immersive and accessible—but they have also given rise to new challenges. Meanwhile, evolving laws and regulations aim to address these issues, attempting to provide solutions and improve accountability.

Time for Trust? Scale and relationality in understanding trust relations between people, technologies and institutions 

The term we have chosen to use to capture the contemporary dynamics of trust is mediated trust. In a paper focused on the rise of Blockchain as a technology of trust, Balasz Bodó has observed that ‘digital technologies shape how humans trust each other, and … in order to fulfill this task, they need to be trustworthy’ (Bodo, 2021, p. 2669). Focusing on the historical development of institutional trust, Bodó argues that the concept of mediated trust incorporates both the dimensions through which digital technologies promote trust through technology, and the discursive frameworks associated with trust in technology.

An Institutional Perspective on Digital Media and Culture: News, Trust, Platforms, Policy 

In 1987, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously said that “there is no such thing as society” (McSmith, 2010). I was startled by that statement when it was made in 1987, and I remain startled by it, 37 years later. At this time, I had undertaken both mainstream economics and political economy at The University of Sydney, where the question of whether economics needed to be understood as existing within a larger social system was a fundamental point of disagreement, to the point where students — some of whom would become future Prime Ministers — would occupy buildings and the iconic Quadrangle Clock Tower in order to make this point.

Mediated Trust short course curriculum

I have developed a short course curriculum on Trust as part of my Mediated Trust ARC Laureate. Over a 13 week period, we will examine different theories and disciplinary traditions associated with the concept of trust, practical applications of trust theory to news, digital platforms and public policy, and trust futures in an age of populism and artificial intelligence.
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