Open Research Repository
The Open Research Repository is the University’s online open access repository for collecting, maintaining and disseminating the scholarly output of the University.
Contribute to the Open Research Repository
Communities in DSpace
Select a community to browse its collections.
Recent Submissions
Forcing online platforms to remove footage of violent attacks: could privacy help?
(International Forum for Responsible Media (INFORM), 2019-03-21) Gligorijevic, Jelena
The attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, last week saw the perpetrator publish footage of his violent attack, as it was happening, online. That footage was republished on various platforms as well as by some news media outlets. It is very likely the perpetrator could not have released this footage, live and to a global audience, without the resource provided by online platforms.
How Women in the Pacific Perceive and Reduce the Risk of Crime Victimisation
(Canberra, ACT: Dept. of Pacific Affairs, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, The Australian National University, 2025-07-25) Putt, Judy; Kaur, Jasbant; Calabrò, Domenica Gisella; Amin, Sara N.; Malungahu, Gemma; Meki, Theresa; Alex, Cathy; Bailey, Rochelle; Watson, Amanda H. A.
In criminology, there is a strong body of literature that examines risks of crime victimisation and fear of crime. Conducted primarily in high-income countries and drawing on the analysis of crime and safety surveys, the research shows that fear of crime is often not directly associated with actual risk, and that there are gendered and age dimensions to the risks of victimisation and to fear of crime (e.g. Stanko 1997; Walklate 2017). A pilot study (Putt et al. 2025) conducted in 2024 in five countries in the Pacific region aimed to explore how women perceive their risk in terms of physical and online safety, including financial safety. In this In Brief, we summarise the main themes that emerged from the pilot study in relation to how women seek to protect themselves (and whether this seems to differ from men’s behaviour).
The Digital Pre-Clinic: Governmentality and Expertise in Australian Mental Healthcare
(2025) Hemmings, Ben
Over the past decade, digital peer support services have become a vital element of Australia's mental health system. Promoted by the non-profit organisations that provide them as a way of connecting people with "shared experiences" of mental ill-health, these services have emerged within Australian public health as a key intervention in the management of the emergent category of "mild mental illness"; a state of minor mental ill-health conceived by public health authorities as a state of ill-health preceding clinical pathology. Employing a governmentality approach, this thesis analyses the efforts of Australian public health and digital peer support service providers to shape, guide and regulate the conduct of Australians through these digital services.
To do so, this thesis draws on qualitative research into two Australian digital peer support services: the Beyond Blue forums and Canteen Connect. Conducted throughout 2020-21, I undertook semi-structured interviews with lead moderators of these services and two Australian epidemiologists working in the field of digital mental health. Alongside this, I analysed key documents produced by Beyond Blue and Canteen, government authorities and epidemiologists.
Through analysis of this material, I argue that in response to the problems of the deinstitutionalisation of mental healthcare and the internet, Australian public health authorities transformed online health forums into mental health services that provide "digital peer support". I contend that this transformation produced these peer-to-peer sites as delivering what I term 'pre-clinical care', a form of support aimed at those who are constituted as not sick enough to require clinical care but could become sicker if left unattended. Following this, the thesis examines how these service providers attempt to deliver this pre-clinical care and the consequences of these practices. In this section of the thesis, I illustrate how these sites construct mild mental illness as a state of risk and ill-health, manageable through monitoring one's own and others' emotional states, productivity, and concentration; how the 'person with lived experiences' emerges within through sites as an 'expert healthcare consumer', operating to legitimise medical authority; and the ways in which these sites participate in processes of territorialisation, resulting in the formation of distinctly Australian online mental health forums.
In this way, this thesis is not only a critical investigation of digital peer support services, it is also an examination of peer expertise, mental healthcare, the internet and government in contemporary Australian society. Ultimately it argues that minor mental ill-health has become a central site of concern and intervention for Australian public health, one in which authorities seek to manage populations through the production of a subject who acts to protect and secure both their own mental health and that of others.
Drinking drivers and random breath testing, wave 1, Sydney, November 1982: user's guide for the machine-readable data file
(Canberra : Social Science Data Archives, Australian National University, 1985., 1985) Traffic Authority of New South Wales. Traffic Accident Research Unit; Australian National University. Social Science Data Archives
The survey examines the beliefs and attitudes held by motorists in relation to drinking, drink-driving and New South Wales driving regulations. Of particular interest are the reactions of the young, especially males, whose contribution to alcohol-related fatalities is of deep concern. This first wave was conducted prior to the introduction of random breath-testing in New South Wales (see also SSDA 329).
Variables include drinking habits of respondent and friends, drinking locations, pressures from others for respondent to drink and drive, drink-driving of respondent and friends, alternatives to drink-driving, perceived affects of alcohol on driving ability, knowledge of drink driving laws, and acquaintance with anyone penalised for drink-driving. Opinions were sought on the causes of serious accidents, wearing of seat belts, safe amounts of alcohol prior to drinking, the seriousness of drink driving, and the use of the breathalyser, radar speed checks and random breath testing. Demographic variables are sex, age, driving status, level of driving qualifica tion, marital status and level of education.
Drug use among Hobart secondary school students, 1971-1982 : user's guide for the machine-readable data file
(Canberra : SSDA, Australian National University, 1982) Lewis, Ian; Howell, Robert; Rayner, Kent; Australian National University. Social Science Data Archives
Three similar surveys were conducted over an eleven year period in order to observe trends over time in licit drug use and its behavioural correlates among secondary school students. Information was collected on health, self-concept
and medications. This included dieting and the use of vitamins, analgesics, alcohol and tobacco. Background variables included school, grade, age, sex, father's occupation, place of residence and position in family.