Technology, Media and Strategy Research Group: Researching with “vulnerable” and “marginalised” communities

This panel presentation draws on three research projects within the School of Communication at UTS (FASS) that contest and challenge deficit terminology often associated with minority groups in Australia including LGBTIQA+, multicultural or culturally and linguistically diverse communities. These presentations will discuss how these groups and communities are often seen as “at risk”, when they are in fact more resilient, and their use of digital and social media technology enables this resiliency.

Presentations

Reducing risk and increasing community resilience in CALD communities: Using technology for culturally appropriate communication 
Dr Kate Delmo 
Dr Natalie Krikowa 
Melinda McDonald (QF) 

This presentation shares the findings of a funded research project by the NSW Reconstruction Authority, led by Fire and Rescue New South Wales (FRNSW) in partnership with the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). The project aims to reduce risk and improve community resilience of community members in New South Wales (NSW), Australia who are originally from non-English speaking backgrounds. The presentation discusses key findings that contribute to an evidence-based approach to support culturally competent communication. The emerging communication model, albeit focusing on NSW, is scalable and can be adapted across the emergency and disaster response sector in other localities to increase responders’ level of competency in engaging effectively with CaLD communities. The mobile app prototype, Ready Set Go! developed in collaboration with our CaLD community participants demonstrates how emergency response agencies can move beyond text-based translation in the communication of safety messaging.  

Kate Delmo is a Senior Lecturer and Head of Discipline of Strategic Communication at UTS. Kate’s research focuses on crisis/emergency/disaster risk resilience, spontaneous disaster volunteerism, and digital media influencers.  
Natalie Krikowa is a Senior Lecturer in Digital and Social Media at UTS. Natalie’s research in this space focuses on the use of digital and social media and co-design practice to improve communication and community engagement using new and existing technologies.  
Melinda McDonald (QF) is an Operational Firefighter and Research Officer at Fire and Rescue NSW. Her work focuses on communications in public safety to reduce preventable fires and fire-related injuries and fatalities through greater understanding of our culturally and linguistically diverse stakeholders, and more effective communication.  

POV Asian in Australia: performing hybrid cultural identities in TikTok 
Dr Tisha Dejmanee 

Second-generation Asian Australians have widely deployed digital and social media as a tool for self-representation and community-building, particularly in the absence of Asian Australian representation in mainstream media. In this talk, I present on the ways that Asian Australians perform and generate dialogue around their everyday practices of negotiating racial, ethnic and national identities. Exploring these issues on TikTok, I suggest that this platform offers a crucial space for young Asian Australians to create counternarratives that centre the unique experiences of this community – particularly around everyday racism and racial stereotypes – and to affectively repurpose these experiences through humour, shock and absurdity through the creative use of TikTok affordances. These findings offer an understanding of the significance of everyday digital media practices in fashioning creative understandings of hybrid Asian Australian cultural identity. 

Tisha Dejmanee is a Senior Lecturer and Head of Discipline of Digital and Social Media at UTS. Her recent work examines the construction and performance of gender and race on various platforms and digital cultures. Her most recent book, titled Postfeminism, Postrace and Digital Politics in Asian American Food Blogs, was published in 2023. 

LGBTQ+ young people’s mental health care expertise 
Dr Paul Byron 

Adopting a strengths-based approach to LGBTQ+ young people's mental health surfaces vital stories of queer and trans survival, resilience, and community care too often overlooked when LGBTQ+ young people are primarily understood as vulnerable subjects in need of rescue. Surveys and interviews with LGBTQ+ young people in Australia (aged 16-25), about digital peer support for mental health, produced evidence of the types of care and support that many LGBTQ+ need and rely on. Participants who experienced multiple marginalisations though being queer/trans as well as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, POC, and/or disabled, typically had poorer experiences of formal health care, and greater difficulties with schools, families, and ‘the LGBTQ+ community'. Many such participants described deep investment with social media networks offering safety, tailored support, and relief. This suggests a community-centred 'best practice' model of mental health care that is far from the reach of formal healthcare systems, and further distanced by a reluctance to learn from LGBTQ+ young people’s expertise. 

Paul Byron is a Senior Lecturer in Digital and Social Media at UTS. Paul researches digital cultures of care and friendship, particularly among LGBTQ+ young people. He is author of the book Digital Media, Friendship & Cultures of Care (2021).

Presentations from 4:00pm - 5:30pm, followed by drinks and nibbles