Robbie Fordyce, PhD.
Originally from the lands of the Ngāi Tahu people in Ōtepoti, Aotearoa New Zealand, I now live with my family on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people in Naarm/Melbourne.
The last quarter century has seen the rise of massive commercial information systems that capture so much of our private and public life. From Microsoft to Google, Netflix to Tik Tok, tech firms roll out platforms and services that have become commonplace, if not expected, parts of modern society. These systems have a big influence on how we perceive ourselves, our peers, our society, and our future. My research investigates these contexts, with a focus on the interplay between technology, politics, and social life.
Professionally, I’m housed in the Faculty of Arts at Monash University, where I am a Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication Studies. At Monash, I lead the Information Nations Research Group, and am also a co-convenor of the Digital Cultures Research Group. I’m an Associate Investigator at the Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, and and an Affiliate of the Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-making and Society. I’m also a member of Platform Pedagogies and the Automated Society Working Group (Monash).
In 2025, I’ll be taking up a DECRA fellowship project on the impacts of AI for creative and intellectual workers of different sorts. You can read the ADM+S write-up here[↗], or check out the administrative summary here[↗] if you’re into such things.
My teaching is primarily at undergraduate level, which includes ATS3992 Working with Artificial Intelligence[↗] and also ATS1280 Understanding the Media[↗]. I’m always up for a chat about research supervision, but seek to keep myself to less than four doctoral supervisions at any one time.