Please join us for a free Australian Internet Observatory Webinar exploring how methods such as data donation, interviews, surveys and other approaches may be combined for digital platform research.

Digital platforms shape how Australians access information, communicate, entertain, engage with government services, participate in public discourse, and conduct business. Understanding digital platforms, and how we interact with them, may offer new insights for a wide range of critical public interest issues across public health, education, entertainment, cybersecurity and democratic inclusion.

Despite the importance of digital platforms and the abundance of data they contain, the capacity to independently collect and analyse data from digital platforms for research remains limited. To address this challenge, the Australian Internet Observatory is developing new tools and methods for social data research using data donations, APIs and other methods. These newer approaches can also be combined with other established methods such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, content analysis, administrative data, simulations and other qualitative and quantitative techniques.

In this presentation AIO partner leads, Prof Dan Angus and Prof Nic Carah and AIO Engagement Lead, Dr Amanda Lawrence, will provide:

An overview of the digital platform research challenge
How AIO supports new data collection methods for digital platforms such as data donations methods
How these methods can be combined with other approaches for critical insights on a range of topics.
Q&A and Discussion on how AIO can support your research and methods

We also want to hear from the community about your research needs and how you might combine digital platform data with other methods.

About the speakers

Prof. Daniel Angus is Professor of Digital Communication in the School of Communication, and Director of QUT's Digital Media Research Centre. Daniel's research examines issues at the intersection of technology and society, with a focus on artificial intelligence, automation, misinformation, and new methods to study the digital society.

Prof Nic Carah is Director of the Centre for Digital Cultures & Societies in the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences and Professor in the School of Communication and Arts. He is an Associate Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, and a Chief Investigator on ARC Discovery and Linkage projects. Nicholas' research examines the algorithmic and participatory advertising model of digital media platforms, with a sustained focus on digital alcohol marketing.

Dr Amanda Lawrence is Engagement Lead at Australian Internet Observatory based at RMIT University. She has a PhD in media and communication and is a qualified librarian. Previous roles include Research Fellow at ADM+S, Program Director at AIO, Director of Australian Policy Online and Literature Program Manager at the Asialink Centre, University of Melbourne.

The AIO is a co-investment partnership with RMIT University, Queensland University of Technology, University of Queensland, University of Melbourne, Swinburne University, Deakin University and the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) through the HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons (DOI: 10.3565/hjrp-b141). The ARDC is enabled by the Australian Government's National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).

This event is presented in partnership with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society

Contact the host of Doing Digital Platform Research with the Australian Internet Observatory