Fiona Suwana

Dr Fiona Suwana

Lecturer, Communication

School of Communication, Media and Journalism

College of Creative Arts, Design and Humanities

Dr Fiona Suwana is Communication and Media Lecturer & Researcher at the UniSA Creative. Fiona designed and led the short course program of the 2021 - 2022 "Democratic Resilience: Youth participation in Indonesia's Democracy" and the 2019 - 2020 “Democratic Resilience - Digital and Media Literacy” by QUT and DFAT Australia Awards Indonesia. She graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy at Digital Media Research Centre, School of Communication, Queensland University of Technology, Australia. She also received a Master of Science of Communication Science from Universitas Indonesia and a Bachelor of Arts (Honors) of Communication Studies (Mass Communication) from London School of Public Relations, Jakarta. Her research focuses on digital activism, digital media, digital media literacy, social and political movement, democracy, and young people, specifically civic engagement and political participation to support democratic practices.
Fiona is co-author book of Social Media in Society by Palgrave  Macmillan. Her other work has been published in Palgrave, Information, Communication and Society, Media Practice and Education, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Kasetsart Journal of Social Science, and Research Report (a commissioned independent study into digital news in Australia for Facebook Australia and accompanied submission to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission - Digital Platforms Inquiry), The Conversation, the Jakarta Post, and book chapters. 

  • Civil Society and Counter-Disinformation in South East Asia and East Asia. The research project in collaboration with Dr Damien Spry (Lead) and Dr Malcolm Cook.
  • Digital and Data Activism: Identity, Relationship, and Protection Collaboration with Yearry Panji Setianto, Ph.D (Co-lead),  Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa University, Indonesia. Progress project: Palgrave book chapter publication (under review).
  • Digital Media and Influence Political Campaigns. The research project in collaboration with Dr Damien Spry (Lead) at UniSA Assoc. Prof. Francisco A. Magno (La Salle College), Dr. Satveer Kaur, National University of Singapore, Dr Niki Cheong Coventry University, UK. This project examines the development of innovative digital research methods, international scholarly networks, academic publication, and grant development.
  • The 2019 Indonesian Election and Memetic Warfare on WhatsApp. The research project in collaboration with Dr Ariadna Matamoros Fernandez (QUT DMRC) and Associate Professor Emma Baluch (Monash Malaysia). This project examines how the memes of political actors and election campaigns could circulate through WhatsApp. To what extent those memes can be moderated and perpetuated. Progress project: preparing for publication on Information Communication and Society.

Year Citation
2025 Wijayanto., Berenschot, W., & Suwana, F. (2025). KPK and Taliban: cyber troops and the social media influence operation to weaken Indonesia's anti-corruption body. Indonesia, 119(119), 103-121.
DOI
2024 Baulch, E., Matamoros Fernandez, A., & Suwana, F. (2024). Memetic persuasion: and WhatsAppification in Indonesia's 2019 presidential election. New Media and Society, 26(5), 2473-2491.
DOI
2023 Sutjipto, A. M., Pinariya, J. M., & Suwana, F. (2023). International student experience in Indonesia and public diplomacy consequences: governance of Darmasiswa program. International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education, 12(3), 1419-1428.
DOI
2022 Suwana, F. (2022). What motivates digital activism? The case of the Save KPK movement in Indonesia. Information, communication & society, 23(9), 1295-1310.
DOI
2022 Wijayanto., Suwana, F., & Sardini, N. H. (2022). Cyber terror, the academic anti-corruption movement and Indonesian democratic regression. Contemporary Southeast Asia, 44(1), 31-55.
DOI
2021 Suwana, F. (2021). Content, changers, community and collaboration: expanding digital media literacy initiatives. Media Practice and Education, 22(2), 153-170.
DOI
2017 Suwana, F., & Lily. (2017). Empowering Indonesian women through building digital media literacy. Kasetsart Journal of Social Sciences, 38(3), 212-217.
DOI

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