Stephen Harrington
Biographic Data
| ID | 354649 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Stephen Harrington |
| GIVEN NAMES | Stephen |
| FAMILY NAME | Harrington |
| SIGNATURE | HARRINGTON S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Queensland University of Technology |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5340-1906 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 113 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Did journalists ‘sanewash’ Donald Trump during the 2024 election campaign? An empirical analysis
Donald Trump's political and rhetorical style has presented a challenge to journalists’ modus operandi since he first announced his candidacy for President. During the 2024 election campaign, the practice of ‘sanewashing’ became a talking point among media and political commentators. The term describes the way Donald Trump's rambling, generally unfocussed speech would appear more coherent (and ‘sane’) when it was presented in news reports. In thi…
"Just Asking Questions": Doing Our Own Research on Conspiratorial Ideation by Generative AI Chatbots
Interactive chat systems that build on generative artificial intelligence frameworks - such as ChatGPT or Copilot - are increasingly embedded into search engines, Web browsers, operating systems, or available as standalone sites and apps. In a communication ecosystem where information disorder is a persistent threat (Wardle & Derakhshan, 2017), there is the potential for users to utilise chat systems to seek information about conspiracy theories …
“Just Asking Questions”: Doing Our Own Research on Conspiratorial Ideation by Generative AI Chatbots
Interactive chat systems that build on artificial intelligence (AI) frameworks are increasingly ubiquitous and embedded into search engines, Web browsers, and operating systems, or as standalone websites and apps. Researcher efforts have sought to understand the limitations and potential for harm of chatbots powered by generative AI, which we contribute to here. Conducting a systematic review of seven AI-powered chat systems (ChatGPT 3.5 Turbo; C…
I scroll past all the news I see on Facebook: Australian young adults' use of social media for filtering information during the Covid-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic represented the first real experience of a global crisis for young Australian adults and saw them engage with the news at a heightened level. In this study, we report findings on how COVID-19 affected the way young adults consumed and avoided the news, the composition of their media diets, and factors that shape their news consumption strategies. The data was collected by conducting four focus groups with 15 Queensland-based…
Big Lies: Understanding the Role of Political Actors and Mainstream Journalists in the Spread of Disinformation
Much of the scholarly attention on disinformation has focussed on the role of social media, thus overlooking the political actors who themselves propagate disinformation and the mainstream news outlets that report on them. In this article we argue that disinformation has now become so widespread because outright lies are an effective way for political actors to attract and manage public attention. Political strategists have likewise worked out th…
Television
This chapter provides an overview of the history of Australian television, from its inception in the 1950s, through to the present day. This history is divided into four separate ‘phases’ – initial development and establishment (pre-1986), a period of specialising (1987–2005), the post-digital, ‘multi-channelling’ era (2006–14) and the era of streaming (since 2015) – with particular emphasis placed on the two most recent of those phases. The chap…
Computational Communication Methods for Examining Problematic News-Sharing Practices on Facebook at Scale
Social media, in general, and Facebook in particular, have been clearly identified as important platforms for the dissemination of mis- and disinformation and related problematic content. However, the patterns and processes of such dissemination are still not sufficiently understood. We detail a novel computational methodology that focusses on the identification of high-profile vectors of 'fake news' and other problematic information in public Fa…
Covering Conspiracy: Approaches to Reporting the Covid/5G Conspiracy Theory
Conspiracy theories about the ‘real’ origins of the coronavirus have co-evolved with media coverage of the COVID-19 crisis itself; the World Health Organization now warns about a global “infodemic” paralleling the viral pandemic. Covering these conspiracy theories presents difficult editorial choices for news organizations. This article examines how diverse news outlets chose to report on one key COVID-19 conspiracy theory: the (entirely unfounde…
Building a greener dining scene: How do veg-friendly restaurateurs “crop up”
Purpose Of all industries, agri-food has one of the largest environmental impacts. Reducing the production and consumption of meat, dairy and seafood, and moving to predominantly plant-based diets, is key to lowering our environmental footprint. Veg-friendly restaurants play a key role in this transition as they have the capacity to build a greener dining scene (e.g. positively change consumer opinions towards vegan food). Hence, the purpose of t…
‘Fake News’ and Other Problematic Information: Studying Dissemination and Discourse Patterns
Encompassed by the disputed term ‘fake news’, a variety of overtly or covertly biased, skewed, or falsified reports claiming to present factual information are now seen to constitute a critical challenge to the effective dissemination of news and information across established and emerging democratic societies. Such content – variously also classifiable as propaganda, selective reporting, conspiracy theory, inadvertent misinformation, and deliber…
Corona? 5G? or both: The dynamics of Covid-19/5G conspiracy theories on Facebook
Focussing in detail on one key component of the infodemic surrounding COVID-19, this article traces the dissemination dynamics of rumours that the pandemic outbreak was somehow related to the rollout of 5G mobile telephony technology in Wuhan and around the world. Drawing on a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods including time-series analysis, network analysis and in-depth close reading, our analysis shows the dissemination of the rum…
What’s newsworthy about ‘social news’? Characteristics and potential of an emerging genre
This article describes the emerging genre of ‘social news’ – characterised by a ‘born-digital’ form of journalism which is both symptomatic of and a pragmatic response to the logics of social media. The article outlines the genre’s key formal characteristics, illustrating them through discussions of three key Australia-based publications – BuzzFeed Oz News, Junkee , and Pedestrian.tv . The analysis of these examples indicates that social news dep…
Entertainment Values: How Do We Assess Entertainment and Why Does It Matter?
While HBO’s The Newsroom presents itself as fictional television, its narrative is clearly driven by critiquing cable news culture and contemporary journalism ethics. Audiences are not only supposed to be entertained by it, they are expected to engage with the program to consider a host of issues, from the broader purpose of journalism in society, to its contemporary status and performance, to the politics of the nation. Simply put, the show acts…
Defining entertainment: An approach
Entertainment is a key cultural category. Yet the definition of entertainment can differ depending upon whom one asks. This article maps out understandings of entertainment in three key areas. Within industrial discourses, entertainment is defined by a commercial business model. Within evaluative discourses used by consumers and critics, it is understood through an aesthetic system that privileges emotional engagement, story, speed and vulgarity.…
From the “Little Aussie Bleeder” to Newstopia: (Really) Fake News in Australia
This article offers an overview of the key characteristics of "fake" news in the Australian national context. Focusing on two television shows, The Norman Gunston Show and Newstopia, it historicizes "fake" news within Australian television culture, situating it as part of a broader tradition of what CitationTurner (1989) calls "Transgressive TV." After analyzing the core comedic themes, styles, and intertextual relationships of both shows, the ar…
The 'New' News
This themed issue of Media International Australia brings together a collection of work that critically examines some of the rapid changes to the news media system in recent years, including an explosion of news sources, formats and increasingly popular hybrid styles and, the collapse in the authority of the trusted news sources of the past. Much news is now broken by social media, and journalists compete in a cycle of news and politics that has …
Australian Journalism Studies after 'Journalism: Breaking down the Disciplinary Boundaries (For Good)
This article argues that if journalism is to remain a relevant and dynamic academic discipline, it must urgently reconsider the constrained, heavily policed boundaries traditionally placed around it - particularly in Australia. A simple way of achieving this is to redefine its primary object of study: away from specific, rigid, professional inputs towards an ever-growing range of media outputs. Such a shift may allow the discipline to freely reas…
The uses of satire: Unorthodox news, cultural chaos and the interrogation of power
This article focuses on the satirical Australian show The Chaser’s War on Everything, and uses it to critically assess the potential political and social ramifications of what McNair (2006) has called ‘cultural chaos’. Drawing upon and analysing several examples from this particular program, alongside interviews with its production team and qualitative audience research, this article argues that this TV show’s engagement with politicians and poli…
Top Gear , top journalism: Three lessons for political journalists from the world's most popular TV show
This article examines the BBC program Top Gear, discussing why it has become one of the world's most-watched TV programs, and how it has very successfully captivated an audience who might otherwise not be particularly interested in cars. The analysis of the show is here framed in the form of three ‘lessons’ for journalists, suggesting that some of the entertaining (and highly engaging) ways in which Top Gear presents information to its viewers co…
Chasing Reporters: Intertextuality, Entertainment and Public Knowledge
This article examines 'What Have We Learned From Current Affairs This Week?' - a very successful weekly segment from the ABC program The Chaser's War on Everything. It argues that, through its intertextual satire, this regular segment acts not as a traditional news program would in presenting news updates on current events, but as a text that reflects on the way news is reported, and how this in turn may shape public discourse. While the program …
Waking Up With Friends: Breakfast news, Sunrise and the “televisual sphere”
This paper examines the Australian breakfast news program Sunrise. By drawing on interviews with both viewers and producers, as well as selected textual analysis, it examines the show, how it is “used” as a news source, and explores its role within the audience's morning routines. By viewing the show as a part of what Baym has termed the “Televisual Sphere”, it will argue against the common discourse that the program has simply followed a populis…
Future-proofing journalism: Youthful tastes and the challenge for the academy
Popular news in the 21st century Time for a new critical approach
This article is a brief review and critique of the main scholarly approaches to thinking about popular forms of news in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, particularly in regards to broadcast television. Rather than advocating the merits of either popular or `hard' news, it discusses the possibility of finding (or revisiting) a critical approach to popular news and current affairs 1 journalism that charts a suitable middle ground: one that c…
The Democracy of Conversation: The Panel and the Public Sphere
If news is a fundamental part of the public sphere and ideals of democracy, then continuing assertions about the public's lack of engagement with its topics is a worrying trend. However, much of this worry may be conflated by a lack of understanding about both the lived experiences of audiences (particularly youth audiences) and the news media environment more generally. This paper examines The Panel, a Ten Network 'new' news program which appear…
Popular news in the 21st century Time for a new critical approach
This article is a brief review and critique of the main scholarly approaches to thinking about popular forms of news in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, particularly in regards to broadcast television. Rather than advocating the merits of either popular or `hard' news, it discusses the possibility of finding (or revisiting) a critical approach to popular news and current affairs 1 journalism that charts a suitable middle ground: one that c…
Corona? 5G? or both: The dynamics of Covid-19/5G conspiracy theories on Facebook
Focussing in detail on one key component of the infodemic surrounding COVID-19, this article traces the dissemination dynamics of rumours that the pandemic outbreak was somehow related to the rollout of 5G mobile telephony technology in Wuhan and around the world. Drawing on a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods including time-series analysis, network analysis and in-depth close reading, our analysis shows the dissemination of the rum…
What’s newsworthy about ‘social news’? Characteristics and potential of an emerging genre
This article describes the emerging genre of ‘social news’ – characterised by a ‘born-digital’ form of journalism which is both symptomatic of and a pragmatic response to the logics of social media. The article outlines the genre’s key formal characteristics, illustrating them through discussions of three key Australia-based publications – BuzzFeed Oz News, Junkee , and Pedestrian.tv . The analysis of these examples indicates that social news dep…
The uses of satire: Unorthodox news, cultural chaos and the interrogation of power
This article focuses on the satirical Australian show The Chaser’s War on Everything, and uses it to critically assess the potential political and social ramifications of what McNair (2006) has called ‘cultural chaos’. Drawing upon and analysing several examples from this particular program, alongside interviews with its production team and qualitative audience research, this article argues that this TV show’s engagement with politicians and poli…
Future-proofing journalism: Youthful tastes and the challenge for the academy
Waking Up With Friends: Breakfast news, Sunrise and the “televisual sphere”
This paper examines the Australian breakfast news program Sunrise. By drawing on interviews with both viewers and producers, as well as selected textual analysis, it examines the show, how it is “used” as a news source, and explores its role within the audience's morning routines. By viewing the show as a part of what Baym has termed the “Televisual Sphere”, it will argue against the common discourse that the program has simply followed a populis…
From the “Little Aussie Bleeder” to Newstopia: (Really) Fake News in Australia
This article offers an overview of the key characteristics of "fake" news in the Australian national context. Focusing on two television shows, The Norman Gunston Show and Newstopia, it historicizes "fake" news within Australian television culture, situating it as part of a broader tradition of what CitationTurner (1989) calls "Transgressive TV." After analyzing the core comedic themes, styles, and intertextual relationships of both shows, the ar…
Chasing Reporters: Intertextuality, Entertainment and Public Knowledge
This article examines 'What Have We Learned From Current Affairs This Week?' - a very successful weekly segment from the ABC program The Chaser's War on Everything. It argues that, through its intertextual satire, this regular segment acts not as a traditional news program would in presenting news updates on current events, but as a text that reflects on the way news is reported, and how this in turn may shape public discourse. While the program …
The Democracy of Conversation: The Panel and the Public Sphere
If news is a fundamental part of the public sphere and ideals of democracy, then continuing assertions about the public's lack of engagement with its topics is a worrying trend. However, much of this worry may be conflated by a lack of understanding about both the lived experiences of audiences (particularly youth audiences) and the news media environment more generally. This paper examines The Panel, a Ten Network 'new' news program which appear…
Computational Communication Methods for Examining Problematic News-Sharing Practices on Facebook at Scale
Social media, in general, and Facebook in particular, have been clearly identified as important platforms for the dissemination of mis- and disinformation and related problematic content. However, the patterns and processes of such dissemination are still not sufficiently understood. We detail a novel computational methodology that focusses on the identification of high-profile vectors of 'fake news' and other problematic information in public Fa…
The 'New' News
This themed issue of Media International Australia brings together a collection of work that critically examines some of the rapid changes to the news media system in recent years, including an explosion of news sources, formats and increasingly popular hybrid styles and, the collapse in the authority of the trusted news sources of the past. Much news is now broken by social media, and journalists compete in a cycle of news and politics that has …
Australian Journalism Studies after 'Journalism: Breaking down the Disciplinary Boundaries (For Good)
This article argues that if journalism is to remain a relevant and dynamic academic discipline, it must urgently reconsider the constrained, heavily policed boundaries traditionally placed around it - particularly in Australia. A simple way of achieving this is to redefine its primary object of study: away from specific, rigid, professional inputs towards an ever-growing range of media outputs. Such a shift may allow the discipline to freely reas…
The Democracy of Conversation: The Panel and the Public Sphere
If news is a fundamental part of the public sphere and ideals of democracy, then continuing assertions about the public's lack of engagement with its topics is a worrying trend. However, much of this worry may be conflated by a lack of understanding about both the lived experiences of audiences (particularly youth audiences) and the news media environment more generally. This paper examines The Panel, a Ten Network 'new' news program which appear…
Future-proofing journalism: Youthful tastes and the challenge for the academy
Popular news in the 21st century Time for a new critical approach
This article is a brief review and critique of the main scholarly approaches to thinking about popular forms of news in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, particularly in regards to broadcast television. Rather than advocating the merits of either popular or `hard' news, it discusses the possibility of finding (or revisiting) a critical approach to popular news and current affairs 1 journalism that charts a suitable middle ground: one that c…
Waking Up With Friends: Breakfast news, Sunrise and the “televisual sphere”
This paper examines the Australian breakfast news program Sunrise. By drawing on interviews with both viewers and producers, as well as selected textual analysis, it examines the show, how it is “used” as a news source, and explores its role within the audience's morning routines. By viewing the show as a part of what Baym has termed the “Televisual Sphere”, it will argue against the common discourse that the program has simply followed a populis…
Top Gear , top journalism: Three lessons for political journalists from the world's most popular TV show
This article examines the BBC program Top Gear, discussing why it has become one of the world's most-watched TV programs, and how it has very successfully captivated an audience who might otherwise not be particularly interested in cars. The analysis of the show is here framed in the form of three ‘lessons’ for journalists, suggesting that some of the entertaining (and highly engaging) ways in which Top Gear presents information to its viewers co…
Chasing Reporters: Intertextuality, Entertainment and Public Knowledge
This article examines 'What Have We Learned From Current Affairs This Week?' - a very successful weekly segment from the ABC program The Chaser's War on Everything. It argues that, through its intertextual satire, this regular segment acts not as a traditional news program would in presenting news updates on current events, but as a text that reflects on the way news is reported, and how this in turn may shape public discourse. While the program …
The uses of satire: Unorthodox news, cultural chaos and the interrogation of power
This article focuses on the satirical Australian show The Chaser’s War on Everything, and uses it to critically assess the potential political and social ramifications of what McNair (2006) has called ‘cultural chaos’. Drawing upon and analysing several examples from this particular program, alongside interviews with its production team and qualitative audience research, this article argues that this TV show’s engagement with politicians and poli…
From the “Little Aussie Bleeder” to Newstopia: (Really) Fake News in Australia
This article offers an overview of the key characteristics of "fake" news in the Australian national context. Focusing on two television shows, The Norman Gunston Show and Newstopia, it historicizes "fake" news within Australian television culture, situating it as part of a broader tradition of what CitationTurner (1989) calls "Transgressive TV." After analyzing the core comedic themes, styles, and intertextual relationships of both shows, the ar…
The 'New' News
This themed issue of Media International Australia brings together a collection of work that critically examines some of the rapid changes to the news media system in recent years, including an explosion of news sources, formats and increasingly popular hybrid styles and, the collapse in the authority of the trusted news sources of the past. Much news is now broken by social media, and journalists compete in a cycle of news and politics that has …
Australian Journalism Studies after 'Journalism: Breaking down the Disciplinary Boundaries (For Good)
This article argues that if journalism is to remain a relevant and dynamic academic discipline, it must urgently reconsider the constrained, heavily policed boundaries traditionally placed around it - particularly in Australia. A simple way of achieving this is to redefine its primary object of study: away from specific, rigid, professional inputs towards an ever-growing range of media outputs. Such a shift may allow the discipline to freely reas…
Defining entertainment: An approach
Entertainment is a key cultural category. Yet the definition of entertainment can differ depending upon whom one asks. This article maps out understandings of entertainment in three key areas. Within industrial discourses, entertainment is defined by a commercial business model. Within evaluative discourses used by consumers and critics, it is understood through an aesthetic system that privileges emotional engagement, story, speed and vulgarity.…
Entertainment Values: How Do We Assess Entertainment and Why Does It Matter?
While HBO’s The Newsroom presents itself as fictional television, its narrative is clearly driven by critiquing cable news culture and contemporary journalism ethics. Audiences are not only supposed to be entertained by it, they are expected to engage with the program to consider a host of issues, from the broader purpose of journalism in society, to its contemporary status and performance, to the politics of the nation. Simply put, the show acts…
What’s newsworthy about ‘social news’? Characteristics and potential of an emerging genre
This article describes the emerging genre of ‘social news’ – characterised by a ‘born-digital’ form of journalism which is both symptomatic of and a pragmatic response to the logics of social media. The article outlines the genre’s key formal characteristics, illustrating them through discussions of three key Australia-based publications – BuzzFeed Oz News, Junkee , and Pedestrian.tv . The analysis of these examples indicates that social news dep…
Corona? 5G? or both: The dynamics of Covid-19/5G conspiracy theories on Facebook
Focussing in detail on one key component of the infodemic surrounding COVID-19, this article traces the dissemination dynamics of rumours that the pandemic outbreak was somehow related to the rollout of 5G mobile telephony technology in Wuhan and around the world. Drawing on a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods including time-series analysis, network analysis and in-depth close reading, our analysis shows the dissemination of the rum…
‘Fake News’ and Other Problematic Information: Studying Dissemination and Discourse Patterns
Encompassed by the disputed term ‘fake news’, a variety of overtly or covertly biased, skewed, or falsified reports claiming to present factual information are now seen to constitute a critical challenge to the effective dissemination of news and information across established and emerging democratic societies. Such content – variously also classifiable as propaganda, selective reporting, conspiracy theory, inadvertent misinformation, and deliber…
Covering Conspiracy: Approaches to Reporting the Covid/5G Conspiracy Theory
Conspiracy theories about the ‘real’ origins of the coronavirus have co-evolved with media coverage of the COVID-19 crisis itself; the World Health Organization now warns about a global “infodemic” paralleling the viral pandemic. Covering these conspiracy theories presents difficult editorial choices for news organizations. This article examines how diverse news outlets chose to report on one key COVID-19 conspiracy theory: the (entirely unfounde…
Building a greener dining scene: How do veg-friendly restaurateurs “crop up”
Purpose Of all industries, agri-food has one of the largest environmental impacts. Reducing the production and consumption of meat, dairy and seafood, and moving to predominantly plant-based diets, is key to lowering our environmental footprint. Veg-friendly restaurants play a key role in this transition as they have the capacity to build a greener dining scene (e.g. positively change consumer opinions towards vegan food). Hence, the purpose of t…
Television
This chapter provides an overview of the history of Australian television, from its inception in the 1950s, through to the present day. This history is divided into four separate ‘phases’ – initial development and establishment (pre-1986), a period of specialising (1987–2005), the post-digital, ‘multi-channelling’ era (2006–14) and the era of streaming (since 2015) – with particular emphasis placed on the two most recent of those phases. The chap…
Computational Communication Methods for Examining Problematic News-Sharing Practices on Facebook at Scale
Social media, in general, and Facebook in particular, have been clearly identified as important platforms for the dissemination of mis- and disinformation and related problematic content. However, the patterns and processes of such dissemination are still not sufficiently understood. We detail a novel computational methodology that focusses on the identification of high-profile vectors of 'fake news' and other problematic information in public Fa…
Big Lies: Understanding the Role of Political Actors and Mainstream Journalists in the Spread of Disinformation
Much of the scholarly attention on disinformation has focussed on the role of social media, thus overlooking the political actors who themselves propagate disinformation and the mainstream news outlets that report on them. In this article we argue that disinformation has now become so widespread because outright lies are an effective way for political actors to attract and manage public attention. Political strategists have likewise worked out th…
I scroll past all the news I see on Facebook: Australian young adults' use of social media for filtering information during the Covid-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic represented the first real experience of a global crisis for young Australian adults and saw them engage with the news at a heightened level. In this study, we report findings on how COVID-19 affected the way young adults consumed and avoided the news, the composition of their media diets, and factors that shape their news consumption strategies. The data was collected by conducting four focus groups with 15 Queensland-based…
Did journalists ‘sanewash’ Donald Trump during the 2024 election campaign? An empirical analysis
Donald Trump's political and rhetorical style has presented a challenge to journalists’ modus operandi since he first announced his candidacy for President. During the 2024 election campaign, the practice of ‘sanewashing’ became a talking point among media and political commentators. The term describes the way Donald Trump's rambling, generally unfocussed speech would appear more coherent (and ‘sane’) when it was presented in news reports. In thi…
"Just Asking Questions": Doing Our Own Research on Conspiratorial Ideation by Generative AI Chatbots
Interactive chat systems that build on generative artificial intelligence frameworks - such as ChatGPT or Copilot - are increasingly embedded into search engines, Web browsers, operating systems, or available as standalone sites and apps. In a communication ecosystem where information disorder is a persistent threat (Wardle & Derakhshan, 2017), there is the potential for users to utilise chat systems to seek information about conspiracy theories …
“Just Asking Questions”: Doing Our Own Research on Conspiratorial Ideation by Generative AI Chatbots
Interactive chat systems that build on artificial intelligence (AI) frameworks are increasingly ubiquitous and embedded into search engines, Web browsers, and operating systems, or as standalone websites and apps. Researcher efforts have sought to understand the limitations and potential for harm of chatbots powered by generative AI, which we contribute to here. Conducting a systematic review of seven AI-powered chat systems (ChatGPT 3.5 Turbo; C…
Sociology (19 works) · Media studies (16 works) · Media Studies and Communication (14 works) · Political science (14 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Public relations (10 works) · Journalism (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · Social Media and Politics (9 works) · Art (8 works)