- Posted on 23 Aug 2023
- 8-minute read
What is technology's relationship to jazz? To disasters, to cultural heritage, to youth?
"Technology and... " is a UTS School of Communication research seminar podcast exploring the range of ways we consider technology and its relationship to Arts and Social Sciences research here at UTS.
Informed but informal, these three conversations showcase the breadth of expert research talent in the School of Communications, with contributions by visiting and adjunct scholars. Each episode is less than an hour.
(Recorded March 2023)
A roundtable discussion about the relationship between technology and jazz. The definition of technology is considered and explored from different perspectives, engaging musical practice, diasporic communities, history and other creative media forms like photography. Also discussed is the value of archives and their relationship to technology. (Image credit: pxfuel.com - xamvu)

(Recorded May 2023)
Speakers Elizabeth Humphrys and Daryna Zhyvohliadova explore technology's relationship to cultural heritage from two different but urgent perspectives. The episode starts with Elizabeth's work on the West Gate Bridge disaster, a tragic and avoidable disaster in 1970 where 35 employees were killed (and many more injured), with 28 women widowed and 88 children left without fathers. Her presentation discusses the political economy of the bridge construction and collapse, and the legacy of the disaster today.
Daryna Zhyvohliadova is a visiting scholar at UTS researching the active threats to Ukrainian cultural historical sites and artefacts as part of the war. Daryna’s presentation is focused on the battle for saving the cultural heritage during the Russian war against Ukraine. Daryna’s research examines international cultural cooperation during the war time as the process of knowledge exchange of different typologies. The presentation also gives concrete tools and cases for how to use modern technologies to safeguard the culture.

(Recorded June 2023)
In this episode, speakers Timothy Laurie and Amelia Johns explore technology and youth considering different demographics and experiences.
In his discussion of youth and technology, Timothy gives consideration to the particular experiences of and representations about gender through tangible technologies like toys and film, complimenting his larger specialty in this field of gender studies, and building room for further considerations of gendered contexts and their consequences. In her talk Amelia Johns presents findings from her research into youth, technology and education, carefully considering diaspora youth and digital citizenship to challenging existing dominant approaches focused just on risk and safety. (Image credit: Viktor Hanacek at PicJumbo)
Speakers
Dr Timothy Laurie is a Senior Lecturer and Higher Degree Research Coordinator in the School of Communication. His core research interests include cultural theory, gender and sexuality studies, studies in popular culture, and philosophy. He is currently a Chief Investigator on Australian Boys: Beyond the Boy Problem, funded through an Australian Research Council Special Interest Grant (2021-2024). Timothy has co-authored The Theory of Love: Ideals, Limits, Futures (Palgrave, 2021) with Hannah Stark, and co-edited Unsettled Voices: Beyond Free Speech in the Late Liberal Era (Routledge, 2021) with Tanja Dreher and Michael Griffiths. Timothy is also a Managing Editor for Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies and the regional representative for Australia and New Zealand on the Board of the Association for Cultural Studies
Dr Amelia Johns is a Senior Lecturer, Digital and Social Media, and specialises in youth digital media activism and digital citizenship. Her current projects are an ARC Discovery project ‘Fostering Global Digital Citizenship: Diaspora Youth in a Connected World’ (with Johns, Walton, Caluya & Harris) and she is also lead researcher on a project funded by Facebook’s Content Policy Award ‘Mapping and countering the diffusion of hate speech across social media’ (with Bailo and Marian-Andrei). She has published in Social Media + Society, Media International Australia, Journal of Sociology, and is co-editor of an upcoming special issue of 'First Monday '10 Years of WhatsApp: The role of chat apps in the formation and mobilisation of online publics’. She is author of Battle for the Flag and co-editor of Negotiating Digital Citizenship: Control, Contest Culture (with McCosker and Vivienne).
The UTS School of Communication 'Technology and' 2023 expert research panels and podcast recordings were curated, coordinated and recorded on the land of the Gadigal People by Dr Liz Giuffre, Research Officer, UTS School of Communications, Senior Lecturer in Communication, Music and Sound Design.
Byline: Dr Liz Giuffre