Julian Thomas
Julian Thomas is the Director of the Automated Decision Making in Society Centre of Excellence and Director of the Technology, Communication and Policy Lab at DERC. He is a researcher in digital media and the internet, including media, communications and information policy and the history of communications technologies.
Julian’s recent work includes the Australian Digital Inclusion Index (2016), Internet on the Outstation (Institute of Network Cultures, 2016), and The Informal Media Economy (Polity, 2015).
Julian was previously the Director of the Swinburne Institute for Social Research (SISR), and Professor of Media and Communications. Julian is Chair of the management committee of the website Australian Policy Online, and is a member of the Telstra CEO’s Consumer Forum, the ARC College of Experts, and the Advisory Board of QUT’s Digital Media Research Centre.
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.
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,...