Ellie Rennie
Professor Ellie Rennie is an ARC Future Fellow and Principal Research Fellow in DERC. She is also a member of RMIT’s Blockchain Innovation Hub.
Ellie’s current research is focused on social and policy questions arising from automation technologies, including blockchain. She has worked extensively on the topic of digital inclusion, particularly in relation to remote Australia and Indigenous communities. In addition, she maintains a strong research interest in civil society and media policy, including community media.
Ellie’s Future Fellowship project, ‘Cooperation through code’, aims to show the social consequences of using distributed ledger technology for compliance, registries and regulatory processes. The project expects to generate new knowledge of how technology is changing administrative coordination between government and non-government entities. The project will run from May 2020 – May 2025.
Ellie’s book publications include: Wi-Fi (Polity, forthcoming, with Julian Thomas and Rowan Wilken); Using Media for Social Innovation (Intellect, with Aneta Podkalicka, 2018); Internet on the Outstation: The digital divide and remote Aboriginal communities (multi-authored, Institute for Network Cultures, 2016); Life of SYN: A Story of the Digital Generation (Monash University Press, 2011); Community Media: A Global Introduction (Rowan & Littlefield, 2006).
Ellie Rennie’s full list of academic publications can be found via Google Scholar.
Additional research reports are located on the Analysis and Policy Observatory (APO) website.
Labs
Automation and Social Futures
Automation and Social Futures engages with the ethical, political, social, organisational, cultural and governance implications of machine learning, algorithmic decision-making and digital infrastructures.
Digital Inclusion, Mobility, and Activism
The research program examines the challenges and potentials of digital participation as this relates to access and inclusion, connectivity, networks and political activism, gig or micro work, and mobility and migration.
Projects
Methods Masterclass Series
Methods Masterclass Series 2023 offers advanced training in creative practice, digital ethnographic, and social science tools. Co sponsored by the Enabling Impact Platforms at RMIT.
Cooperation through Code: The social outcomes of distributed ledger technologies
The research aims to provide empirical evidence of the outcomes of governance administered through decentralised platforms.
Publications
Wi-Fi
From café culture to home schooling, remote community networks, and smart cities, Wi-Fi is an invisible but fundamental element of contemporary life. Loosely regulated, low-cost, and largely overlooked by researchers,...
Disconnect Podcast
Disconnect is a podcast series that tells stories related to a unique aspect of internet use in Aboriginal communities and towns.
News
DERC Researchers Ellie Rennie and Ramon Lobato awarded ARC Future Fellowships
October 22, 2019
We are very excited by the news that both Ellie Rennie and Ramon Lobato have been awarded ARC Future Fellowships.
Announcing Co-Director Ellie Rennie
May 15, 2019
We are delighted to announce that Ellie Rennie, Principal Research Fellow with the Social Change ECP and core member of DERC, will join Tania Lewis as Co-Director of the Centre.