Jonathon Hutchinson
Biographic Data
| ID | 3855476 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jonathon Hutchinson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jonathon |
| FAMILY NAME | Hutchinson |
| SIGNATURE | HUTCHINSON J |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Sydney |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7349-1662 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 33 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 12 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 33 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
The anxiety of age
Throughout 2023 and 2024, in the lead up to the introduction of Australia’s social media age-restriction laws, calls to ban teenagers’ access to social media were widely reported by Australian news media. This media moment was in part driven by moves by governments of a range of countries to take action to address the harmful effects of social media on young people, high profile, popular academic books such as Haidt’s The Anxious Generation (2024…
Taking Care Online
Social digital dilemmas
This article examines emerging online safety issues for Australian teenagers (12–17 years) in their use of social media, apps and online games drawing on findings from a multi-phase, mixed-methods research project carried out from January 2022 to July 2023. Based on the research, we develop a new understanding of ‘social digital dilemmas’, situating our analysis within the rapidly changing social media environment that uses algorithmic technologi…
Influencer regulations, governance and sociocultural issues in Asia
Influencer and micro-celebrity research has become a popular interdisciplinary research area across digital media studies and celebrity studies in the past few years, including a growing interest in Asia broadly (e.g., Abidin, 2018; Abidin & Brown, 2018; Hopkins, 2019; Hurley, 2019; Lukács, 2020) and their growth on platforms outside of Silicon Valley (e.g., Guan, 2020; Lin & de Kloet, 2019; Song, 2018). However, existing research in the field ha…
Creative Underspheres and democratic challenges
This article introduces the concept of the Undersphere – a networked community brought together via creative exchange – to highlight how the increased proliferation of Generative AI poses risks not yet acknowledged by policymakers within emerging AI regulatory frameworks. Employing a single case study methodology – namely, exploring exchanges made on r/StableDiffusion, a known subgroup on Reddit – it illustrates the conceptual parameters of the U…
I don't want to live their lives
This article examines Vietnam and unpacks how its digital media is operating somewhat successfully. It demonstrates how contemporary online content creators adapt and thrive within a platformed, social media ecology that pushes back against non-authentic media through what locals refer to as 'online experience intermediators'. Using interviews with Vietnamese creative industry experts, online content creators and younger users, this article artic…
Data sovereignty
Our contemporary digital lives produce an overwhelmingly high level of data as part of the digital traces we leave behind from our everyday activities. These data traces are often under the operational jurisdiction of a blend of commercial, private and government operators whereby our control over the data generated through digital traces becomes an incredibly complex scenario. One area attracting significant attention among scholars, activists a…
The responsibility to protect online
The pursuit of reducing online harms has become an integral part of both internet and digital platform governance, with states around the world seeking to implement policies and regulatory mechanisms to address the issue at breakneck speed. In this editorial, we suggest the race to have nation states protect citizens from harm online is reminiscent of the era of humanitarian interventionism in international relations. From the 1990s, the urgency …
The pursuit of ‘good’ Internet policy
As our digital society continues to advance, an increasingly diverse array of scholars, policymakers, civic interest groups, companies and regulatory bodies from around the world are seeking to have an increased say in its governance. This diversity makes the challenge of achieving ‘good’ Internet policy more complex and contested. Of course, the notion of 'good Internet policy' raises several important questions: What defines a good Internet pol…
Diversity’ as multidisciplinary keyword for the politics of cultural recommender systems in global digital media platforms
‘Diversity’ is a heavily freighted and multivalent keyword in the global digital media environment. The recommender systems used by platforms are particularly acute sites of development and debate around the political, cultural and technical issues ‘diversity’ signifies. Drawing on a review of computer science publications on recommender systems in media and entertainment as well as a survey of recent advances in media and cultural policy scholar…
Digital Intermediation
Digital Intermediation offers a new framework for understanding content creation and distribution across automated media platforms – a new mediatisation process. This book draws on empirical and theoretical research to carefully identify and describe a number of unseen digital infrastructures that contribute to a predictive media production process through technologies, institutions and automation. Field data is drawn from several international s…
Democracy in the digital era
As Yochai Benkler identified almost two decades ago, the internet radically transformed “how we make the information environment we occupy as autonomous individuals, citizens and members of cultural and social groups” (Benkler, 2006, p. 1). This transformation has had critical implications for democratic social and political systems. Our information environment plays an important role in the “health” of a democracy because democratic governance i…
Black summer on TikTok and ABC news
This study investigates the role of two intermediaries, a mainstream media outlet and a popular digital media platform, to shape cultural identity through a case study of the 2019-2020 Australian bushfire crisis (colloquially known as the ‘Black Summer’). Theoretically framed by networked publics, this study explores the vernacular creativity of social media users and mainstream media coverage during the Black Summer bushfire crisis. Findings dra…
Communication research and teaching
This article presents responses from a range of Australian scholars on communication research and teaching in the context of a roundtable in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Australian Communication Association (ACA), the precursor organisation to the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA). Emphasising the range and diversity of approaches and epistemologies in this field, the roundtable invited a 'situated' respon…
The Internet regulation turn? Policy, Internet and technology
During a chaotic time for most in which our virtual world, made possible through the internet and its affordances, Policy & Internet sought the voices of scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and higher degree researchers to rethink our internet, its policy and the surrounding communication technology within our contemporary society. One emerging and overarching theme became apparent as our network of global scholars provided their insights into…
Regulating social media and influencers within Vietnam
Ms. Nguyen Phuong Hang is the CEO of Dai Nam Van Hien, a tourism complex in Binh Duong province in southern Vietnam, and in 2021 she started livestreaming on social media. Hang's livestreams would humiliate celebrities, include personal attacks, criticize media and charity organizations, and use harassing language, resulting in the Vietnamese government regulating social media influencers. Vietnam is a centralized government that promotes the reg…
Living in media and the era of regulation
We write this editorial from our homes as the greater Sydney region of Australia experiences an extended lockdown due to the increasing risks of the Delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2—coronavirus or Covid-19—on our relatively isolated population. While we are hopeful that, by the time of publishing, the immediate impacts of Covid-19 are significantly reduced, we are confident that several elements, notably within the digital space, will remain. In t…
Scholarly research and user‐centred policy design
Our societies are approaching and engaging with a number of policy moments, we are presented with opportunities to develop the discourse surrounding a sustained vitality of the worlds in which we live. One way of undertaking this is through extensive consultation with those of whom the discussions impact the most. Often this includes industry and government stakeholders, but more importantly is the process of including the voices of the groups an…
The Internet and public policy
In January 2021, the editorial team of Policy & Internet changed from the Oxford Internet Institute to the Department of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney. This article invites all the past and current editors to contribute to the future directions and discussion of internet and public policy. It is collection of six contributions covering the trajectory of the internet policy research agenda, platform power in the digital econ…
Life (online)
Our contemporary life is an intertwined arrangement of ‘Life’ with digital technologies. Increasingly, we are seeing the prevalence of automation and machines, predominantly through artificial intelligence (AI), as a means to make sense of our worlds, engage with our employers, understand the political system and interact with our social lives as some of the key methods among a wide variety of other interpersonal communication processes. Not only…
Micro-platformization for digital activism on social media
Social media emerged with a broad understanding that egalitarian practices would become the standard approach to publishing and distributing content. In recent times we have seen this flat hierarchical approach fade as commercial stakeholders, platform providers and content publishers continue to design and practice exclusionary processes to ensure their work is visible. This current practice limits the capacity for all voices to be heard, prompt…
Digital intermediation
This article constructs a theoretical model of digital intermediation: a process of three key, and unseen, components for cultural production in our contemporary media environment. Digital intermediation is a content production and consumption process that incorporates the cultural characteristics of technologies , agencies and automation . First, the article describes the key components of digital intermediation that bring about the production a…
Blocked by YouTube? Unseen digital intermediaries for social imaginaries in the Asia Pacific
YouTube is one of the most utilised online content sharing sites, enabling commercial enterprise, education opportunities, and facilities for vernacular creativity. Its user engagement demonstrates online community development; alongside its use as a distribution platform to monetise one's branded self. However, as a subset of Alphabet Incorporated, its access is often restricted by governments of Asian Pacific countries. This research describes …
Trust in the system
This special issue of Information, Communication and Society reflects on the generative work presented at the 2019 annual conference of the Association of Internet Researchers (#AoIR2019). The conference attracted approximately 380 people from 35 countries to work through the theme, Trust in the System. Delegates analysed developments on the internet, in social media and through data management, including those grounded in Indigenous perspectives…
Beyond access, towards engagement
Digital intermediation
This article constructs a theoretical model of digital intermediation: a process of three key, and unseen, components for cultural production in our contemporary media environment. Digital intermediation is a content production and consumption process that incorporates the cultural characteristics of technologies , agencies and automation . First, the article describes the key components of digital intermediation that bring about the production a…
An introduction to digital media research methods
Digital methods have previously been described as ‘a term that seeks to capture a recent development in Internet-related research, summarized as approaches to the web as data set’. Using this as a starting point, this paper positions digital media methods as a methodological approach that incorporates internet-based data, while also including other communicative and social media platforms such as Instagram, Vine, Twitter, giffy, Periscope, and Fa…
The Ethnographer as Community Manager
This article investigates the ethnographic methodological question of how the researcher observes objectively while being part of the problem they are observing. It uses a case study of ABC Pool to argue a cooperative approach that combines the role of the ethnographer with that of a community manager who assists in constructing a true representation of the researched environment. By using reflexivity as a research tool, the ethnographer engages …
Moving convergence culture towards cultural intermediation
Raymond Williams noted culture is specific to each society, where ‘the making of a society is the finding of common meanings and direction’. Cultural studies provide a foundation for an array of emerging research areas that seek to explore those meanings and directions, such as convergence culture. Recent humanities scholarship has called for researchers to move beyond the marvel of convergence culture, with its potential for increased social inc…
The future of digital archive collections
During 2011, the now defunct ABC Pool (abc.net.au/pool) project developed an experiment that sought to combine emerging augmented reality (AR) technology with the archival collection of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). The MyBurb project attempted to alter experiences of Australian suburbs by augmenting ABC archives in contemporary suburban environments to explore the blur between physical and digital spaces with its citizens. Mobil…
The Ethnographer as Community Manager
This article investigates the ethnographic methodological question of how the researcher observes objectively while being part of the problem they are observing. It uses a case study of ABC Pool to argue a cooperative approach that combines the role of the ethnographer with that of a community manager who assists in constructing a true representation of the researched environment. By using reflexivity as a research tool, the ethnographer engages …
The future of digital archive collections
During 2011, the now defunct ABC Pool (abc.net.au/pool) project developed an experiment that sought to combine emerging augmented reality (AR) technology with the archival collection of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). The MyBurb project attempted to alter experiences of Australian suburbs by augmenting ABC archives in contemporary suburban environments to explore the blur between physical and digital spaces with its citizens. Mobil…
From Fringe to Formalisation
The role assumed by institutions that directly develop and support online communities has emerged as a crucial factor in the development of self-governance models for online communities engaging in collaborative practices. Commonly, online communities reject top-down governance models in favour of a meritocracy that positions users in authoritative positions because of their online performance. Scholarly research into online communities suggests …
Public Service Media and Social TV
The public service media (PSM) remit requires the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) to provide for minorities while fostering national culture and the public sphere. Social media platforms and projects - specifically 'social TV' - have enabled greater participation in ABC content consumption and creation; they provide opportunities for social participation in collaborative cultural production. However it can be argued that, instead of dec…
Moving convergence culture towards cultural intermediation
Raymond Williams noted culture is specific to each society, where ‘the making of a society is the finding of common meanings and direction’. Cultural studies provide a foundation for an array of emerging research areas that seek to explore those meanings and directions, such as convergence culture. Recent humanities scholarship has called for researchers to move beyond the marvel of convergence culture, with its potential for increased social inc…
An introduction to digital media research methods
Digital methods have previously been described as ‘a term that seeks to capture a recent development in Internet-related research, summarized as approaches to the web as data set’. Using this as a starting point, this paper positions digital media methods as a methodological approach that incorporates internet-based data, while also including other communicative and social media platforms such as Instagram, Vine, Twitter, giffy, Periscope, and Fa…
Algorithmic Culture and Cultural Intermediation
Cultural Intermediaries
Beyond access, towards engagement
Trust in the system
This special issue of Information, Communication and Society reflects on the generative work presented at the 2019 annual conference of the Association of Internet Researchers (#AoIR2019). The conference attracted approximately 380 people from 35 countries to work through the theme, Trust in the System. Delegates analysed developments on the internet, in social media and through data management, including those grounded in Indigenous perspectives…
Living in media and the era of regulation
We write this editorial from our homes as the greater Sydney region of Australia experiences an extended lockdown due to the increasing risks of the Delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2—coronavirus or Covid-19—on our relatively isolated population. While we are hopeful that, by the time of publishing, the immediate impacts of Covid-19 are significantly reduced, we are confident that several elements, notably within the digital space, will remain. In t…
Scholarly research and user‐centred policy design
Our societies are approaching and engaging with a number of policy moments, we are presented with opportunities to develop the discourse surrounding a sustained vitality of the worlds in which we live. One way of undertaking this is through extensive consultation with those of whom the discussions impact the most. Often this includes industry and government stakeholders, but more importantly is the process of including the voices of the groups an…
The Internet and public policy
In January 2021, the editorial team of Policy & Internet changed from the Oxford Internet Institute to the Department of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney. This article invites all the past and current editors to contribute to the future directions and discussion of internet and public policy. It is collection of six contributions covering the trajectory of the internet policy research agenda, platform power in the digital econ…
Life (online)
Our contemporary life is an intertwined arrangement of ‘Life’ with digital technologies. Increasingly, we are seeing the prevalence of automation and machines, predominantly through artificial intelligence (AI), as a means to make sense of our worlds, engage with our employers, understand the political system and interact with our social lives as some of the key methods among a wide variety of other interpersonal communication processes. Not only…
Micro-platformization for digital activism on social media
Social media emerged with a broad understanding that egalitarian practices would become the standard approach to publishing and distributing content. In recent times we have seen this flat hierarchical approach fade as commercial stakeholders, platform providers and content publishers continue to design and practice exclusionary processes to ensure their work is visible. This current practice limits the capacity for all voices to be heard, prompt…
Digital intermediation
This article constructs a theoretical model of digital intermediation: a process of three key, and unseen, components for cultural production in our contemporary media environment. Digital intermediation is a content production and consumption process that incorporates the cultural characteristics of technologies , agencies and automation . First, the article describes the key components of digital intermediation that bring about the production a…
Blocked by YouTube? Unseen digital intermediaries for social imaginaries in the Asia Pacific
YouTube is one of the most utilised online content sharing sites, enabling commercial enterprise, education opportunities, and facilities for vernacular creativity. Its user engagement demonstrates online community development; alongside its use as a distribution platform to monetise one's branded self. However, as a subset of Alphabet Incorporated, its access is often restricted by governments of Asian Pacific countries. This research describes …
The Internet regulation turn? Policy, Internet and technology
During a chaotic time for most in which our virtual world, made possible through the internet and its affordances, Policy & Internet sought the voices of scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and higher degree researchers to rethink our internet, its policy and the surrounding communication technology within our contemporary society. One emerging and overarching theme became apparent as our network of global scholars provided their insights into…
Regulating social media and influencers within Vietnam
Ms. Nguyen Phuong Hang is the CEO of Dai Nam Van Hien, a tourism complex in Binh Duong province in southern Vietnam, and in 2021 she started livestreaming on social media. Hang's livestreams would humiliate celebrities, include personal attacks, criticize media and charity organizations, and use harassing language, resulting in the Vietnamese government regulating social media influencers. Vietnam is a centralized government that promotes the reg…
Digital Intermediation
Digital Intermediation offers a new framework for understanding content creation and distribution across automated media platforms – a new mediatisation process. This book draws on empirical and theoretical research to carefully identify and describe a number of unseen digital infrastructures that contribute to a predictive media production process through technologies, institutions and automation. Field data is drawn from several international s…
Democracy in the digital era
As Yochai Benkler identified almost two decades ago, the internet radically transformed “how we make the information environment we occupy as autonomous individuals, citizens and members of cultural and social groups” (Benkler, 2006, p. 1). This transformation has had critical implications for democratic social and political systems. Our information environment plays an important role in the “health” of a democracy because democratic governance i…
Black summer on TikTok and ABC news
This study investigates the role of two intermediaries, a mainstream media outlet and a popular digital media platform, to shape cultural identity through a case study of the 2019-2020 Australian bushfire crisis (colloquially known as the ‘Black Summer’). Theoretically framed by networked publics, this study explores the vernacular creativity of social media users and mainstream media coverage during the Black Summer bushfire crisis. Findings dra…
Communication research and teaching
This article presents responses from a range of Australian scholars on communication research and teaching in the context of a roundtable in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Australian Communication Association (ACA), the precursor organisation to the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA). Emphasising the range and diversity of approaches and epistemologies in this field, the roundtable invited a 'situated' respon…
Data sovereignty
Our contemporary digital lives produce an overwhelmingly high level of data as part of the digital traces we leave behind from our everyday activities. These data traces are often under the operational jurisdiction of a blend of commercial, private and government operators whereby our control over the data generated through digital traces becomes an incredibly complex scenario. One area attracting significant attention among scholars, activists a…
The responsibility to protect online
The pursuit of reducing online harms has become an integral part of both internet and digital platform governance, with states around the world seeking to implement policies and regulatory mechanisms to address the issue at breakneck speed. In this editorial, we suggest the race to have nation states protect citizens from harm online is reminiscent of the era of humanitarian interventionism in international relations. From the 1990s, the urgency …
Sociology (25 works) · Political science (23 works) · Computer Science (22 works) · Social Media and Politics (17 works) · Law (15 works) · World Wide Web (15 works) · Public relations (14 works) · Business (13 works) · Social media (13 works) · Media studies (11 works)