Matt Hart

Matt Hart

School of Humanities

Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Economics

Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.

I am a lecturer in the Department of Media at the University of Adelaide. I completed a first-class honours degree in sociology at the University of Wollongong in 2013 before completing my PhD in Sociology at La Trobe University in 2017. From 2017-2023, I worked as a lecturer in media and communication at the University of Leicester at the School of Media, Communication and Sociology.

I am a media sociologist whose research focus is on the areas of youth, digital media, and risk. I have researched and published on how young people engage in social media in intimate and social ways through the voluntary risk-engagement of nude selfie sharing practices. Currently, I am researching the social processes that have contributed to the emergence of 'Incels' (Involuntary Celibates), and the mental health impacts and benefits for young people engaged in esports and livestreaming environments online.

I have been published in leading sociological journals such as Young and the Journal of Youth Studies.

Since 2013, I have researched young people's intimate and risky engagement with social media platforms, notably on the sociality and wellbeing leveraged through young people's production and sharing of nude, not safe for work (NSFW) selfies on Tumblr.

 

Recently, my research has shifted direction slightly in two ways; I am interested in understanding how livestreaming and gaming contexts such as Esports can impact on young people's mental health and wellbeing - how, for example, can the process of 'trauma dumping' in Twitch.tv be a beneficial or harmful practice for young people to engage in, and why they do it. 

 

Additionally, I am interested in examining the sociocultural phenomenon of 'incels' (involuntary celibates), and more specifically, how a process-sociological approach which examines long-term historical changes in the intimate interactions between men and women has led to what we currently label as incels.

  • Journals
    Year Citation
    2017 Hart, M. (2017). Being naked on the internet: young people's selfies as intimate edgework. JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES, 20(3), 301-315.
    DOI WoS20
    2015 Hart, M. (2015). Youth Intimacy on Tumblr. YOUNG, 23(3), 193-208.
    DOI WoS16

  • Books
    Year Citation
    2019 Billet, P., Hart, M., & Martin, D. (Eds.) (2019). Complexities of Researching with Young People. Routledge.
    DOI

  • Book Chapters
    Year Citation
    2020 Kanai, A., Abidin, C., & Hart, M. (2020). The challenges of doing qualitative research on Tumblr: Experience and advice from three scholars of young people's Tumblr use. In A. McCraken, A. Cho, L. Stein, & I. Neill Hoch (Eds.), a tumblr book platform and cultures. University of Michigan Press.
    2019 Hart, M. (2019). They look before they leap: conceptualising young people as digitally competent risk takers and its implications for ethical internet research. In P. Billett, M. Hart, & D. Martin (Eds.), Complexities of Researching with Young People. Routledge.
    2018 Hart, M. (2018). #Topless Tuesdays and #Wet Wednesdays: Digitally Mediated Neo-Tribalism and NSFW Selfies on Tumblr. In A. Hardy, A. Bennett, & B. Robards (Eds.), Neo-Tribes: Consumption, Leisure and Tourism (pp. 207-219). Palgrave Macmillan Cham.
    DOI
    2018 Hart, M. (2018). ‘It’s Nice to See You’re Not the Only One with Kinks’: Presenting Intimate Privates in Intimate Publics on Tumblr. In A. Shields Dobson, B. Robards, & N. Carah (Eds.), Digital Intimate Publics and Social Media (pp. 177-191). Switzterland: Palgrave Macmillan Cham.
    DOI
  • (2023) Principal Investigator (University of Adelaide ABLE Research Grant Scheme) Youth Mental Health on Twitch.tv. $5000AUD internal grant.

 

 

  • (2019-2022) Co-Investigator (H2020) DigiGen The Impact of Technological Transformations on the Digital Generation. I contribute to the work package on ICT and the transformation of civic participation (2019-2022). Project Link available here . $569,678AUD

Currently, I teach into:

 

  • MDIA 1020 - Media Professions and Identities (2024-onwards)
  • MDIA 3207 - Media Industry Transitions (2023-onwards)
  • MDIA 3332 - Media Research Project (2023-onwards)
  • MDIA 3344 - Youth, Digital Media and Risk (2024-onwards)

 

 

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