Social Change Abstracts
School of Education
Second Milestone Review
'Investigating the impact of Intentional Teaching Gestures on student oral production and attitudes in the French-as-an-Additional-Language classroom'
Encouraging student oral production is of paramount importance in an additional language (AL) classroom in order for students, through interaction and discussion, to develop proficiency in the new language. Student attitudes also play a large role in their willingness to communicate (WTC) and their motivation to participate in the AL classroom. Consequently, this research will consider how to promote both student oral production and positive attitudes as they are learning their AL. While previous research has outlined the usefulness of using Intentional Teaching Gestures (ITG), this research consolidates these findings by adding both a new context and ITG methodology and including the consideration of student attitudes. This mixed-methods research project considered a case study in a primary school setting. Participants completed two language production tasks one-on-one. One of these tasks was supported by ITG scaffolds, the other by verbal scaffolds. Both qualitative and quantitative data was gathered on participant use of gesture and use of language. Follow-up interviews gathered qualitative data on student attitudes to learning French and both verbal and ITG scaffolding. These findings may benefit pedagogical outcomes for teaching ALs using ITG in the primary school setting.
School of Global, Urban and Social Studies
Second Milestone Review
'Australia-based international students' perception of intercultural competence for workplace settings'
This presentation outlines the progress of my research on the perceptions of intercultural competence (IC) among undergraduate international students in Australia, focusing on academic, social, and workplace contexts. As international student numbers grow, understanding their intercultural experiences is crucial for supporting academic success, social integration, and career readiness. Over the past two years, the research focus has been refined, adjustments made to align with student needs, and ethics approval successfully obtained. Grounded in clearly defined objectives, the study draws on key literature, including Byram’s model of intercultural communicative competence, and highlights existing gaps to guide the development of research questions. Using a mixed-methods approach, data have been collected from 155 students in Management, Information Technology, and Healthcare through questionnaires and open-ended responses. Ongoing data collection includes semi-structured interviews with students and relevant employers to capture both learner and industry perspectives on IC. Preliminary findings reveal varied intercultural profiles among students and shed light on academic activities that promote intercultural learning. Initial qualitative analysis suggests that students view IC as essential for navigating academic environments, adjusting socially, and preparing for future professions. These insights partially address the first research question on how students perceive the role of IC in academic settings. Looking ahead, I will outline plans for continued data collection and analysis, discuss anticipated challenges such as participant recruitment, and reflect on the broader implications for enhancing intercultural support in Australian higher education. A Q&A session will follow to invite feedback and collaborative discussion.
School of Global, Urban and Social Studies
Third Milestone Review
'The Relational Infrastructure of Innovation: Interdisciplinary Knowledge Building in Australian Higher Education'
This thesis explores the structural tension between institutional aspirations for interdisciplinary innovation and the lived realities of practitioners in Australian university contexts. Through interviews with 17 boundary-spanning professionals across three distinct innovation initiatives, the research investigates how diverse disciplinary perspectives, particularly from humanities, arts, and social sciences (HASS), are integrated within collaborative knowledge-building practices. The study introduces two theoretical constructs—"dual ambiguities" and "institutional drift"—to illuminate why meaningful cross-disciplinary collaboration remains challenging despite genuine institutional commitments. These frameworks help explain how the semantic interplay between interdisciplinarity and innovation creates subtle but powerful patterns that shape resource allocation and recognition systems. The findings reveal that successful integration requires more than spatial co-location or strategic rhetoric; it demands sustained relational work and translation across knowledge boundaries. HASS practitioners contribute distinctive diagnostic and ethical capacities while often navigating complex institutional environments that prioritise readily quantifiable outputs. The research offers insights into how universities might evolve from interdisciplinarity as aspirational rhetoric toward interdisciplinarity as sustained practice, thereby enhancing both the creative potential and social legitimacy of innovation initiatives in higher education.
School of Media and Communication
Third Milestone Review
'Identification of a Wrestling Fan: Understanding Migrant Experiences through an Autoethnographic Documentary on Melbourne’s Wrestling Community'
The professional wrestling scene in Melbourne once served as a vibrant cultural hub for southern European migrants to Australia, providing a meaningful opportunity for community connection and sense of belonging. Contemporarily, however, the local independent wrestling scene struggles to generate mainstream attention and offers dwindling fan experiences. The current exegesis and accompanying creative work capture the unique perspective of a contemporary wrestling fan and son of second-generation Italian migrants with strong ties to the early professional wrestling scene in Melbourne, presenting a historical contrast between expressions of community, fandom, and nationalism. Conducting interviews and collecting archival footage, this project explores what insights the development of an autoethnographic documentary about Melbourne’s professional wrestling community can provide on local migrant experiences and the role of wrestling in shaping national identity. Further, the intersection of fandom and nationalism, the value of collective spectatorship and sport as ritual, and the importance of authentic and respectful representation of migrants in the media are discussed, with particular reference to Benedict Anderson’s writings on ‘imagined communities’. This project addresses the paucity in literature on the rich history of professional wrestling in Australia, particularly with regards to its cultural significance as a site of connection and belonging for Italian and Greek migrant communities. It provides methodological insights on subjectivity in documentary, and the importance of adapting to community rejection and turning to one’s own experiences when conducting autoethnographic research.
School of Media and Communication
Second Milestone Review
'Queer community and new internet technologies'
This thesis investigates how online queer communities utilise new internet technologies to engender opportunities for queer identification and community formation. I define “new internet technologies” as the latest generation of internet-based tools, platforms and protocols that have emerged, or have come into prominence, over the last eight years, such as the blockchain and artificial intelligence. While these technologies are not necessarily new inventions, they are distinguished from earlier internet applications by their purported potential to disrupt existing modes of internet usage and drastically change what it means to be online. Although a considerable amount of literature has been published on the development of these emerging technologies, little attention has been given to their specific implications for LGBTQ+ communities. Using the qualitative methods of digital ethnography and in-depth interviews with queer individuals, this study will deploy a Blochian lens to explore the utopic potential of these technologies for queer communities. The study aims to understand how the specific affordances of these technologies may facilitate or hinder the formation and maintenance of queer communities online, ultimately offering insights that could inform both technology development and social policy into the future—as well as illuminate how queer users envision their own futures within and beyond these digital spaces.
School of Media and Communication
Third Milestone Review
'Digital Power in Queer Social Worlds: An Exploration of the Lived Experiences of Australians with Diverse Genders and Sexualities'
This thesis explores the effects of digital power on the worldmaking practices of people with diverse genders, romantic and sexual orientations. Digital power is a multifaceted phenomenon that describes the many ways humans and non-humans influence their online environments. In recent years, digital power has been shaping experiences with adversity on social networking sites. There is a paucity of research that explores these experiences from the perspective of people who are bisexual+, on the asexual-aromantic spectrum, and of diverse genders. The goal of this research was to address this gap by deploying mixed qualitative methods to study: 1) the forms of digital power in queer social worlds on social networking sites; 2) the influence of digital power on queer worldmaking; and 3) how queer and trans people respond to digital power. This mixed methods design deployed an online survey, and a digital ethnography on the social networking sites Twitter and Tumblr. The themes identified in this research may offer insights into the effects of digital power on the wellbeing of people with diverse genders, romantic and sexual orientations.
School of Global, Urban and Social Studies
Confirmation of Candidature
'Conceptualizations of Love in Saudi Arabic'
This research aims to investigate the cultural conceptualizations of love in the Saudi Arabic variety of the Arabic language (SA). The conceptualization of emotions using language has long been a subject of debate among biologists, philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, and linguists. Many studies have been conducted to specify whether conceptualizations of emotions are universal or specific to particular cultures using different frameworks and tools. However, reliance on a pure linguistic approach to analyse emotion data is problematic as the sociocultural factors that have formed the emotion terms could be neglected. The lack of a research tool that combines both ethnographic and linguistic approaches for the study of emotion is a matter noticed by Hu (2002) and Bagheri (2019). Considering this issue, Sharifian's (2011, 2017a) analytical tools of Cultural Linguistics serve as the research’s framework. This research investigates the influence of cultural conceptualizations upon the language of love in Saudi Arabia and identifies the words, expressions, and metaphors used by native speakers of SA to express and perceive love using Saudi novels. 12 romantic novels written by different female and males Saudi novelists are considered as the source of data in this study.
School of Media and Communication
Third Milestone Review
'Iranian cinema and the “modest woman”'
This thesis analyses how popular Iranian films produced between the Green Movement and the Women's Life Freedom movement (2009-2022) operate within the modesty rules, a set of Islamic laws and norms governing women's appearance and behaviour. Due to the pervasive influence of these rules in Iranian society and cinema, depicting women is challenging, especially for popular films from different genres that need to engage with them to attract audiences. In the completed chapters about The Salesman (2016), Rahman 1400 (2019), Hush! Girls Don’t Scream (2013), and Life and A Day (2016), I show how these films subvert modesty rules by utilising various formal elements. The Salesman critiques the gheirat (honour) culture of the Islamic society of Iran that restricts, controls, and marginalises women. Rahman 1400 disrupts the image of the 'modest' working-class woman, normalised by the regime's propaganda, by portraying an 'immodest' female protagonist who undergoes various beauty surgeries. Hush! critiques the Islamic concept of aberu (reputation), discussing how families and the Islamic judiciary system prioritise reputation over women’s well-being. Finally, Life and A Day examines gender dynamics in working-class families, illustrating how modesty rules restrict gender roles and condemn women to a life of domestic chores. By closely analysing films from various facets of filmmaking, this thesis aims to provide a comprehensive picture of Iranian cinema in the post-Green Movement era concerning modesty rules.
School of Global, Urban and Social Studies
Third Milestone Review
'Female Images in the English Translations of Shui Hu Zhuan'
Shui Hu Zhuan is a classical Chinese fictional work written during the Jiajing period (1522-1567) set in Ming dynasty depicting an uprising led by Song Jiang in the late Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127). Most women in Shui Hu Zhuan are portrayed negatively, showing a misogynistic tendency. There are four full English translations of Shui Hu Zhuan to date, conducted by Pearl S. Buck, J. H. Jackson, Sidney Shapiro, and the father-son translation team John & Alex Dent-Young. This study aims to study the female images in the English translations of Shui Hu Zhuan to explore how the translators represented and reconstructed female images in their translations. In addition to textual analysis, this study also includes contextual research on the translators and their translations to find out what may have led to these reconstructions and to find out the contextual factors such as the translators’ own perceptions of the novel, the social environment they faced. This study will provide a new perspective on the study of the female images in the English translations of Shui Hu Zhuan. This analysis may inspire scholars to further look at translation studies from a more diverse and macroscopic perspective. More importantly, by analysing the representations and reconstructions of the female images female images—particularly those portrayed negatively—this research aims to highlight the gender issues embedded in literature, translation, and contemporary society.
School of Media and Communication
Second Milestone Review
'Reading packaging designs better: Using visual semiotics to reduce consumer confusion'
Household food waste accounts for a significant portion of the worldwide food waste generated annually. Much of this waste arises from consumer confusion about food packaging information, leading people to discard still-edible food unnecessarily. Addressing consumer confusion in packaging could reduce household food waste and alleviate stresses in other areas of the food system. Consumers often misinterpret and misunderstand information on packaging due to ambiguity, inconsistency, lack of clarity, or insufficient knowledge, which hinders their ability to make informed decisions. Resolving this confusion is challenging due to the current infrastructures in the food packaging system that influence consumer behaviour and the complexity of communicating information. Packaging functions as a multidimensional communication tool, with coded messages from stakeholders embedded within visual cues and visual codes that convey information about food safety, quality, marketing, regulation, compliance, values, and product strategy. This further complicates the way consumers ‘read’ packaging. This research examines how consumer confusion occurs and explores how visual codes in food packaging influence consumer decisions related to food waste, using Activity Theory as the theoretical framework. By analysing the various activity systems of consumers and stakeholders around food decisions tied to packaging, I aim to understand the mechanisms behind consumer confusion. This understanding will inform the visual semiotic approach to designing food packaging. Deciphering why consumers experience confusion and what influences their choices allows us to develop a visual semiotic framework that facilitates the creation of packaging designs that are easier for them to understand and interpret.
School of Media and Communication
Confirmation of Candidature
'Infrastructures of Expansion: Exploring Media and Governmental Influences on Huawei’s International Growth'
During its rapid rise to the global stage in the second decade of the millennium, Chinese telecommunication company Huawei encountered a succession of setbacks to international expansion after a series of trade sanctions were placed on the company. The issue was widely discussed both in China and internationally, where it touched upon a broad range of topics covered by the media and other observers. It also set a precedent for similar cases that have since emerged, including platforms like TikTok, and Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers who, like Huawei at the time, now face regulatory and commercial challenges in response to their efforts to bring advanced technologies to the markets of developed economies. This study seeks to challenge the preconception that ideological differences are the primary causes of growing tensions between China and the West. Instead, it reframes this cross-disciplinary question in the context of shifting power dynamics surrounding emerging technologies like 5G and 6G. By exemplifying the Huawei case, this research aims to provide an evidence base to reflect upon the critical role of technological infrastructures in shaping power dynamics, which in turn, influence public perceptions and regulatory outcomes.
School of Global, Urban and Social Studies
Third Milestone Review
'Gender & the State: Analysing Australia’s Gender-based violence policy during the rise of neoliberalism'
How policy problems are framed has implications for what is, and is not, done to address them. Australia and Canada have been highly influential in the development of national prevention policies to address gender-based violence that situate the core of the problem with gender inequality. Yet, in an increasingly contested global policy context where a pervasive neoliberal and authoritarian global politic has arguably eroded competing framings such as human rights, social welfare, and communitarianism. This presents evolving challenges for addressing systemic problems and power relations which rely on a whole of society approach. Drawing on Carol Bacchi's 'what's the problem represented to be' method, this thesis will present a comparative policy analysis of problem representations of gender-based violence and gender equality in Australia and Canada’s national policies to address gender-based violence. Informed by 34 key stakeholder interviews and policy discourse, I present the current political imaginary of current attempts to address gender-based violence, and the complexities of appeals to the State in this developing global hegemony.
School of Media and Communication
Second Milestone Review
'Troubling the Digital: Affect, Activism and Queer Subjectivity in Post-Socialist China'
There is growing evidence that the Internet has afforded Chinese queer lifeworlds unprecedented access to a constellation of communicative practices that are innovative, dissentive, and at times affect-laden. In the meantime, online anti-queer sentiments in relation to rising global movements that transcends ideo-political divisions across different regions is incrementally garnering momentum, adding a layer to the already-existing power struggles in post-socialist China (1978-present). Grounded in poststructuralist lines of critique and mixed methods, this research seeks to interrogate the entangled digital interactivities between queer subjects, affects and post-socialist governmentality which give rise to emergent modalities of subaltern force amidst state repression. In so doing, this research contributes to the field by, first, offering a situated, culturally attuned account of queer politics in China and, second, advancing a conceptual framework to comprehend how everyday resistance, compliance, and ambiguity are enacted and modulated in platformed authoritarian contexts.
School of Media and Communication
Third Milestone Review
'Mobile League: understanding mobile game e-sports in Indonesian popular culture'
This project explores the impact of mobile game e-sports on Indonesian popular culture. It examines how relevant mobile game actors—players, streamers, e-sports organizations, and the government—have worked to popularize mobile game e-sports as a significant practice within the Indonesian media ecology. This project is guided by meta-research questions about the relationship between mobile media practices and mobile game e-sports in Indonesia, as well as their connection to the emerging unique Indonesian media ecology. These meta-research questions are divided into three focused research questions regarding interactions among e-sports practitioners, mobile media affordances, and participatory social media amplification. It is framed within three main fields: mobile media studies, game studies, and social media studies. The methodological approach for this PhD research project is digital ethnography. It applies digital ethnography—primarily through semi-structured interviews with key actors—to capture both the core and paratextual activities surrounding mobile game e-sports and how they are anchored in Indonesia's broader sociocultural, communicative, and participatory media contexts.
School of Global, Urban and Social Studies
Confirmation of Candidature
'The Foreign Language Teacher as a Transformative Intellectual: A Collaborative Space for Critical Practice in the Classroom'
This study explores the development of a collaborative space for foreign language teachers to engage in critical dialogue and material design. While critical language pedagogy (CLP) offers teachers to become 'transformative intellectuals' for social justice, existing critical language pedagogy teacher education initiatives have limitations: researchers typically design materials rather than empowering teachers as designers, guidance for creating critical collaborative spaces is insufficient, and ‘practical’ examples of pedagogical approaches in the Global South remain underexplored. Using a critical case study methodology, I investigate the creation of a collaborative space for English and Spanish as a foreign language teachers in Colombia and Australia, focusing on two research questions: (1) What considerations are essential when designing critical language teacher education collaborative spaces for casual foreign language teachers across these contexts? and (2) How do teachers' orientations evolve through participation in this space? The theoretical framework integrates critical language pedagogy and social justice theories. Data collection employs multiple methods: questionnaires, audio recordings of collaborative sessions, teacher-created materials, reflective journals, and interviews. Analysis will combine iterative thematic analysis with critical discourse analysis to examine how collaborative critical spaces shape teachers’ development as material analysts and designers. Findings will contribute to understanding how critical collaborative spaces can be effectively designed across diverse geographical contexts to support teacher agency in foreign language education.
School of Media and Communication
Third Milestone Review
'Infodemic and misinformation on COVID-19 vaccination through social media in Saudi Arabia and Egypt'
The COVID-19 pandemic led to an ‘infodemic’ about the COVID-19 vaccine, including misinformation that spread globally via social media. Once immunisation began, the gravity of this misinformation risk became clear as it resulted in widespread public concern. This study investigates the role of misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine via social media in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, focusing on Twitter and Facebook. In 2021, Saudi Arabia and Egypt were among the top 20 Twitter-using nations. Facebook is Egypt's most-used social media platform, and there are more than 27 million users in Saudi Arabia. The study employs an online survey, in-depth interviews, and stakeholder interviews to investigate the prevalence and spread of misinformation related to the COVID-19 vaccine on Twitter and Facebook in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The survey collected 556 responses, evenly divided between Saudis and Egyptians. In-depth interviews included four participants from each country across age groups. Stakeholder interviews involved 16 professionals, comprising eight journalists and eight health professionals, who were equally represented from both countries. It specifically examines the sources of this misinformation, how people identify, evaluate and trust (mis)information, and why people share and believe it. The study provides a theoretically informed analysis and evidence base that informs policymakers, journalists, and health communicators and contributes to longer-term improvements in the quality of public discourse regarding vaccinations and other health communication concerns in the region.
School of Media and Communication
Second Milestone Review
'The Role of Museum Interactives in Developing Digital Literacies'
Museums worldwide have faced increasing pressure since the 1980s to demonstrate the positive and tangible impacts they have on their visitors and local communities (Scott, 2003). Of these, educational outcomes are often of especially significant interest (Black, 2005; Hooper-Greenhill, 2007; Jacobsen, 2016). Though museum learning has been an active area of research since the 1970s, the present-day proliferation of technology-enabled interpretive tools offers diverse modes of engaging with museum content that call upon new informal or ‘everyday’ digital literacies. My PhD research seeks to assess these learning outcomes, drawing on research in informal learning, visitor, and media studies to explore how museum interactives can enhance, not only subject matter learning within exhibitions, but also digital skills and literacies. This disciplinary framework will inform a year and a half-long digital ethnography investigating how 18–25-year-olds and 60+ adults engage with and learn from interactive experiences and devices at the Australian Centre for Moving Image (ACMI). Background research regarding Australian museums and galleries’ digital adoption efforts will also be conducted. The research will contribute to our knowledge and understanding of the informal literacy and learning effects of digital interactives in museums, as well as their capacity to foster greater digital inclusion.
School of Media and Communication
Confirmation of Candidature
'The transformation of vernacular creativity and photo-sharing on Instagram'
This thesis asks: ‘How have mobile phone camera practices and photo sharing on Instagram transformed our understanding and experience of vernacular creativity?’ Social media and mobile phone cameras have transformed creative practices in everyday life. ‘Vernacular creativity’ is a term used within academia to abridge the creative practices of everyday life that is often shared through social media platforms. This research will specifically examine some of the ways in which the recent evolution of everyday photographic practice has impacted how Instagram—as a predominant photo-sharing social media platform— is used by creatives to share and promote their work. The thesis surveys their use of social and mobile media will provide insights into the transformation of vernacular creativity. Key concepts will be examined by reviewing and extending on the previous work of key scholars including Abidin, Jenkins, and Burgess. An ethnographic study of how creatives use photo-sharing platforms will address the topics of investigation. Surveys using sets of questions are used to interview participants individually [N = 30, aged 18 and above] and three focus groups based on whether they use creative photos on social media to either share, sell, or promote their creative work. This research seeks to enrich our knowledge on the transformation that social media and mobile phone cameras have had on our photographic practices and the way we experience and understand creativity in everyday media cultures. This thesis aims to contribute to existing scholarship by investigating recent changes and gaining insights from creatives on how our understanding and experience of vernacular creativity have evolved. Newer photo-sharing platforms offer different features and equally important is the evolution of photography applications used to edit, curate and redefine images but these do not form part of this study. This fieldwork seeks to identify how the maturation of key concepts remediation, participatory culture, produsage and vernacular creativity have transformed how we share photos to communicate and connect.
School of Education
Third Milestone Review
'Higher Education Leadership and the UN Sustainable Development Goals in Postcolonial Cambodia'
Cambodian higher education faces persistent challenges, in promoting inclusive and equitable quality education, include social, political, and structural barriers rooted in colonial legacies and reinforced by globalisation. These challenges hinder the sector’s potential to have a meaningful contribution to national development. This study investigates the roles of leadership and institutional practices in promoting inclusive and equitable quality education, aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4. Applying a qualitative methodology, the study draws on semi-structured interviews with university leaders and academics, document analysis, and observations from two universities in Battambang province, Cambodia. Through a postcolonial lens, the research examines how leaders understand and promote inclusion, equity, and quality amid structural constraints, donor influence, and rooted power imbalances. The results show that both universities demonstrate a commitment to equity through expanding access, financial assistance and inclusive pedagogical practices. Quality is promoted through the localisation of global frameworks, such as curriculum modernisation, translanguaging in teaching and learning, and the cultivation of students’ moral and civic dispositions that reflect locally constructed concept of educational value. However, these efforts are influenced by postcolonial dynamics, including dependence on foreign aid, the dominance of Western education models, and the ongoing negotiation of global and local priorities. This research contributes to national, regional, and global discussions on higher education reform by revealing the complexities of localising global equity agendas in postcolonial contexts and underscores the need for culturally responsive and politically conscious leadership to address enduring inequalities.
School of Global, Urban and Social Studies
Second Milestone Review
'Rethinking “Remoteness” in the Fiction Of Alexis Wright and Cathie Dunsford'
This dissertation mobilizes Indigenous Samoan su'ifefiloi and Tongan kakala methodologies to interrogate how the colonial construction of “remoteness” is contested and reconfigured through the literary landscapes of Alexis Wright (Northern Australia) and Cathie Dunsford (New-Zealand and Hawaii). Rather than positioning these texts within comparative frameworks, I theorize their narratives as interconnected knowledge systems that collectively dismantle spatial hegemonies. Drawing from my positionality, I examine how colonial cartographic violence, contemporary mechanisms of dispossession, and Indigenous literary aesthetics converge to radically reorient conceptions of remoteness and relationality. This su'ifefiloi approach illuminates how Indigenous literatures transform not only spatial paradigms but temporal and affective ones, offering precious interventions which counter-navigate easy binarisms. In centering narratives from allegedly “remote” geographies, this research contributes to critical conversations about decolonial futures.
School of Media and Communication
Second Milestone Review
'Social Cartoon Influencer Culture in Vietnam: Social Implications of Automated Content Production'
Social cartoon influencers (SCIs) is a distinct category of virtual influencers that are created with a clear indication of “fictional” characters, rather than digital avatars of real people. Emerging from the visual cultures of anime and webtoon in East Asia, these SCIs have captivated huge interest among digital consumers in Vietnam in recent years. This project critically examines the motivations, tensions, and operational strategies driving the creative production of SCIs, with a particular focus on the social implications of automated content production. By understanding the perspectives of SCI creators and practitioners towards artificial-intelligence-generated content (AIGC) application, the study will provide insights how AIGC influences creative labors and content production within the cultural production landscape. Vietnam is selected as the main project field due to its start-up mentality, AI readiness, and strategic position as a cultural and economic gateway to Southeast Asia. The study employs Critical Techno-cultural Discourse Analysis (CTDA) framework to analyse the intertwined relationships and impacts of digital platforms, AI and creative labors in shaping new cultural products. The overall findings are expected to contribute to the growing body of knowledge of cultural studies, media studies, and influencer marketing regarding the new type of virtual influencers. By identifying the potential risks and benefits of AI application, the study will contribute to scholarship on AIGC in marketing and digital communication.
School of Global, Urban and Social Studies
Confirmation of Candidature
'(Re)Connecting Humans with Nature: Embedding Nature Values into the Fashion Value Chain and Developing Positive Visions for the Future'
Nature sustains human societies with essential services, yet the fashion industry’s reliance on natural resources drives biodiversity loss, waste, and environmental harm. Despite this, many fashion systems, operating within growth-focused industrial models, commodify nature and reflect dualistic mindsets that separate humans from the natural world. This research calls for a radical shift away from this status quo by addressing the values and beliefs that shape how nature is perceived and engaged in fashion. The study aims to investigate how fashion, through traditional textile practices in India, can support deeper human–nature connections and inspire broader systems to align more closely with nature. Guided by an interpretivist framework and qualitative methods, Phase 1 involves ethnographic field visits and focus groups with Indian textile practitioners to examine how their everyday practices reflect nature-related values. A complementary reflective method, “letters to nature, ”helps surface a wider range of values. Building on these insights, Phase 2 will involve a participatory workshop with experts from fashion, sustainability, and policy in India to co-develop inclusive, actionable visions that may strengthen human–nature relationships. These visions will later guide the creation of scenarios and pathways, potentially informing future policies that describe what a fashion system in harmony with nature could look like and how to achieve it. Ultimately, this research creates space for fashion stakeholders to reflect and envision a future where fashion heals rather than harms.
School of Media and Communication
Third Milestone Review
'The Political Economy of Data Infrastructures and Credit Platforms in China's Corporate Social Credit System'
This thesis investigates the state-corporate and infrastructural-power dynamics in China's Corporate Social Credit System—a credit data-driven, business regulatory system established by the Chinese government in 2014. Merging methodologies from political economy, infrastructure studies and platform studies, the thesis contends that the Chinese state's recent involvement in credit reporting, financing, and data trading platforms embodies an expansion of its infrastructural power beyond the techno-material archetypes of roads, bridges and dams. While these state-led platforms have constrained the market power of private financial platform giants in the area of personal credit (together with wider reform of fintech and data economies), the state-corporate nexus has shown more co-operation in the marketisation and global expansion of China’s corporate credit infrastructures—no doubt to help re-invigorate a post-pandemic credit economy facing economic stagnation and geopolitical uncertainty.
School of Global, Urban and Social Studies
Third Milestone Review
'The President and the Bomb: Nuclear Thought and Policy Approaches, 1939 – 1974'
Since the dawn of the atomic age, few decisions could be more significant for an American President, or symbolic of their power, than those regarding nuclear weapons. As the custodian of critical decisions regarding nuclear weapons, it is surprising therefore to discover how little is known or explored about how each President understood and approached this responsibility, and how their respective views and contributions influenced the course of American nuclear policy. This thesis seeks to fill that gap and examine Presidential nuclear policy approaches and strategic thought from 1939 to 1974. By doing so, the thesis adds a presidential dimension to the history of nuclear weapons and explores the role that Presidents’ thoughts and ideas played on the execution of American nuclear doctrine, policy and stockpile development in the beginning – and predominantly formative years – of the atomic age. This period has been chosen deliberately as it traces three distinct stages of American nuclear weapons and leadership; nuclear monopoly, nuclear superiority, and finally, nuclear parity and the achievement of detente with the Soviet Union which produced the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I) agreement. This signalled the first bilateral arms control agreement between the nuclear superpowers and slowed the momentum of Cold War nuclear arms racing. In the final analysis, the research illuminates how nuclear policy varied across administrations and produced different outcomes in the nation’s nuclear trajectory as a result of presidential consideration, response and intervention.
School of Media and Communication
Third Milestone Review
'Nation branding: Image of China in the cyber space through the lens of sports diplomacy'
This study aims to explore the role of sports diplomacy in China’s nation branding and national image on social media, and how those messages are received by target audiences in Australia. The research employs a content analysis framing approach, combined with social network analysis, to analyze data originating from China’s state-owned international broadcasters’ official social media accounts. Also, it will use in-depth interviews with target audiences in Australia about their responses to the messages generated by the Chinese international broadcasters. Using the three methods of analysis this project offers a better understanding of (1) the Chinese government’s use of sports-themed content to boost its national brand; (2) how sports diplomacy connects publics to China’s image in cyberspace; (3) how sport influences the perception of China’s national image in the cyberspace accessed in Australia.
RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.
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