STAFF PROFILE
Distinguished Professor Larissa Hjorth
Distinguished Professor Larissa Hjorth is digital ethnographer and socially-engaged artist in the School of Media & Communication.
Previously Hjorth was Director of the Design and Creative Practice EIP Platform (2017-22), Deputy Dean, Research and Innovation, in the School of Media and Communication (2013-2016) and co-founded the Digital Ethnography Research Centre (DERC) with Professor Heather Horst.Distinguished Professor Larissa Hjorth is a socially-engaged artist and digital ethnographer with vast leadership experience managing complex stakeholders within and outside the academy. Since 2000, Hjorth has been researching the socio-cultural dimensions of mobile media in the Asia–Pacific. Hjorth has two decades experience working on cross-cultural, interdisciplinary projects focusing on creative, ethnographic and critical methods for understanding intergenerational media practices around play, games, loss, grief and resilience. In 2020, Hjorth was named one of the top 40 lifetime researchers by The Australian—this was equated by h-index (42 [citation matrix]) over the course of a career.
Hjorth has extensive experience in research leadership positions. From 2017-2022, Hjorth was the director of the Design & Creative Practice EIP Platform. The Platform focuses on interdisciplinary collaboration with industry and creative solutions to real-world social and ecological problems. In 2016 she was Acting Associate Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research Capability (Sept-Dec) and Design & Social Context Higher Degrees by Research Director. From 2013-2015 she was Deputy Dean of Research & Innovation in the School of Media & Communication, RMIT University. In 2011, Hjorth and Horst founded the Digital Ethnography Research Centre (DERC).
Hjorth has published over 100 publications on the topic—recent publications include Haunting Hands (with Cumiskey, Oxford Uni Press), Understanding Social Media (with Hinton, 2nd Edition, SAGE), Creative Practice Ethnographies (with Harris, Jungnickel and Coombs, Rowman & Little), Ambient Play (with Richardson, MIT Press), Exploring Minecraft (with Richardson, Davies and Balmford, Palgrave), Games & Gaming Cultures (with Richardson and Davies, SAGE) and Digital Media Practices in Households (et al. AUP). In the past five years, Hjorth has published two single authored books, twelve co-authored books, five edited collections, edited five Routledge commissioned Handbook/Companions, five edited journal special issues, 40 book chapters and 48 peer reviewed journal articles. Hjorth is committed to both traditional and non-traditional outputs as modes of dissemination and research translation.
Distinguished Professor Larissa Hjorth has received the following key grants.
Australian Research Council Grants
- Australian Research Council discovery (with I. Richardson) Games of Being Mobile: mobile gaming in everyday life (DP140104295) 2014-2017.
- Australian Research Council Linkage Grant with Intel (with S. Pink & H. Horst) Locating the Mobile (LP130100848) 2013-2016.
- Australian Research Council Linkage Grant Spatial dialogues: public art and climate change with Grollo and Fairfax. CI L. Williams, P. Samartzis, L. Hjorth, K. Sharp, D. Redfern and S. Perry (LP100200088) 2010-2013.
- Australian Research Council Discovery fellowship (with M. Arnold) investigating online communities in the Asia-Pacific for three years (DP0986998) 2009-2012.
Network Grants
- ACCAN (Australian Communication Consumer Action Network) grant (U3A & City of Whittlesea) (lead CI Figueiredo) Co-designing Participatory Strategies With Older Adults to Reduce Perceived Risk and Promote Digital Inclusion (2020-2021) $100k
- Canadian SSHRC Aging in Data (AiD) led by Prof K. Sawchuk (Concordia University, 2021-2025) $3.5 m
- COST 298 Action: Connecting a Broadband Society (2006-2009)
- COST IS 1202 Action: The Dynamics of a Virtual Work (2011-2014)
Hjorth is currently supervising the following Supervision Projects
- The Mundane Spectacle: Livestreaming in China.
- International students, media and wellbeing.
- A Play of Bodies: A Phenomenology of Videogame Experience.
- Ecologies of the Televisual: Children’s Use of the Televisual in Melbourne, Australia.
- The Tree of Everywhere.
- Understanding Material Representations of Physical Activity.
- Ajumma and new media in Seoul.
- Affective Critical Play and New Media.
- New Visualities for Recovery.
- Livestreaming and gaming in Melbourne.
- Home & Away: A visual study of Cambodian diaspora.
- Generative Art for Calm Technologies.
- THE BRUITEUR: Disruptive Listening in Performance and the Everyday.
- Contemporary museum art education.
With a focus on these key supervision topics:
- Socio-cultural use of mobile media technologies in the Asia-Pacific region
- Gender and gaming
- Art and new media
- creative, critical and ethnographic methods
- intergenerational media practices
- more-than-human relationality
- grief and ritual.
- Sheahan, J.,Hjorth, L.,Figueiredo, B.,Martin, D.,Reid, M.,Aleti, T.,Buschgens, M. (2023). Co-Creating ICT Risk Strategies with Older Australians: A Workshop Model In: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20, 1 - 15
- Hjorth, L.,de Souza e Silva, A. (2023). Playing with place: Location-based mobile games in post-pandemic public spaces In: Mobile Media and Communication, 11, 52 - 58
- Chee, F.,Hjorth, L.,Davies, H. (2022). An ethnographic co-design approach to promoting diversity in the games industry In: Feminist Media Studies, 22, 1512 - 1528
- McGrane, C.,Hjorth, L.,Akama, Y. (2022). Careful attunements: the choreographing of care and affective witnessing through media practices during, and after, crisis In: Media, Culture and Society, 44, 303 - 322
- Gerber, K.,Brijnath, B.,Lock, K.,Bryant, C.,Hills, D.,Hjorth, L. (2022). Unprepared for the depth of my feelings' - Capturing grief in older people through research poetry In: Age and Ageing, 51, 1 - 7
- Hjorth, L.,Coombs, G.,Hussey-Smith, K.,Van Loon, J. (2022). Work, care and creativity in a time of COVID-19: creatively mapping presence bleed in the home In: Digital Creativity, 33, 219 - 233
- Hjorth, L. (2022). Careful Digital Kinship: Understanding Multispecies Digital Kinship, Choreographies of Care and Older Adults During the Pandemic in Australia In: Communication, Culture and Critique, 15, 227 - 243
- Engel, L.,Brijnath, B.,Chong, T.,Hills, D.,Hjorth, L.,Loi, S.,Majmudar, I.,Mihalopoulos, C.,Gerber, K. (2022). In press - Quality of life and loneliness post-bereavement: Results from a nationwide survey of bereaved older adults In: Death Studies, , 1 - 12
- Andrejevic, M.,Davies, H.,DeSouza, R.,Hjorth, L.,Richardson, I. (2021). Situating ‘careful surveillance’ In: International Journal of Cultural Studies, 24, 567 - 583
- Balmford, W.,Hjorth, L.,Richardson, I. (2021). Taking over the Home: Children’s Mobile Media Play in Domestic Space In: Young Children’s Rights in a Digital World, Springer, Switzerland
17 PhD Completions and 3 Masters by Research Completions4 PhD Current Supervisions
- The Mourning After: Grief, witnessing and mobile media practices. Funded by: ARC Future Fellowships commencing in 2022 from (2023 to 2027)
- Ageing in and through Data: What data can tell us about ageing. Funded by: ARC-Discovery Projects from (2023 to 2026)
- Codesigning participatory strategies with older adults to reduce perceived risk and promote digital inclusion. Funded by: Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) Grants Scheme 2016 onwards from (2020 to 2022)
- Digital Media, Location Awareness, and the Politics of Geodata (administered by QUT). Funded by: ARC Discovery Project via Other University from (2018 to 2020)
- Future of Games Industry: A Best Practice Model. Funded by: NC Interactive LLC Grant 2016 from (2016 to 2016)